Since the beginning of the 2012 season Giants fans have known one thing above all else. Something is not right with Tim Lincecum.

Countless articles have been written about the struggles of the two-time Cy Young Award winner. It has become almost a weekly thing for the media to discuss what is wrong with Big Time Timmy Jim.

Is he hurt? Are his mechanics out of whack? Did he lose too much weight? The questions are countless and the answers seem impossible to ascertain. But the search for those answers is not why I’m writing this particular piece. No, instead I have come to accept that for this season at least, this is who Tim Lincecum is. Who is that, you ask?

That is a sub-six-foot right hander with an average fastball that lacks plane and the late life it used to be known for. That is a pitcher with quality off-speed pitches that he must locate down in the zone to be effective. And that is an ace who at 27-years-old must remake himself if he wants to recapture the glory of his former self.

If that transformation is to take place, we may be able to look back at the third inning of Tuesday’s game vs. the Padres as the moment in which Timmy 2.0 made his major league debut. It happened after what has become a predictable occurrence in Lincecum’s 12 starts so far this year, lots of loud contact and a crooked number in at least one inning per start.

Having given up a four-spot to the light hitting Padres, which included a tape measure homerun by Carlos Quentin, Lincecum took the mound in the bottom of the third and just like that, the light went on. Gone were the challenge fastballs in hitter counts and the maddening 0-2 to 3-2 at-bats where Timmy 1.0 tried to get hitters to chase. In their place were stolen strike one curveballs and perfect dying changeups in fastball counts, all of which must have made the once-confident Padres hitters wonder who it was they were facing. And when the dust had settled Timmy 2.0 had blown through the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th innings giving up one hit and striking out 8 in the four frames.

The overpowering bravado with which Lincecum once pitched was suddenly replaced with a cerebral, calculated approach that I believe will have to become his calling card if his former stuff never comes back. And that, my friends, is a real possibility whether we as Giants fan want to admit it or not.

What Tuesday night showed was that despite not being able to blow the fastball by hitters, Lincecum still has the ability to miss bats, he just needs to do it in an all-new way. It used to be that hitters had to be so juiced up for the fastball that they had no chance once he broke out the secondary pitches. These days however, hitters can wait out the off-speed stuff and jump on any fastball they see, just like the Padres did in the first two innings Tuesday night.

But if Lincecum continues to do what he did on Tuesday and pitch backwards more often, stealing strikes with off-speed pitches as opposed to always trying to put guys away with them, he can have success. He’s really that good. Above all else, he has to accept the new approach and make it his own. He’s shown the ability to adapt before, coming up with that filthy changeup a few years ago and finding the slider that helped win a World Series. He has it in him to be great again.

All he needs to do now is unleash Timmy 2.0 on the league (and perhaps cut off the hair) and the rest will take care of itself.