The Giants’ first half was a crowd-pleaser. It featured Randy Johnson’s 300th victory, All-Star performances from Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, a major-league-best 13 shutouts and an improving offense led by Pablo Sandoval’s Pandamonium.

Oh yeah, don’t forget the first no-hitter by a Giant in 33 years. Jonathan Sanchez certainly won’t.
After four consecutive losing seasons, Giants fans had one event to cheer after another — and it added up to a 49-39 record, which leads the National League wild-card standings.
If Peter Magowan were still running the team, there’s little doubt what the Giants would do next. They’d be aggressive at the trade deadline, look to trade prospects for hired guns and try to hurtle themselves through the window that has been presented to them.
But Bill Neukom is in his first full year as the Giants’ managing partner. And he didn’t build his Microsoft wealth by habitually going for broke.
“We like the team we have,” Neukom told the Mercury News. “They’ve shown they can win, and win enough to be contenders. So we’re not in any kind of a desperate situation.”
Could this season of collected smiles turn into something even bigger — perhaps even something that no Giants team has accomplished in 51 seasons in San Francisco?
It will hinge on how these five questions are answered over the next three months:

1. Add a bat or stand pat?
Neukom said there is flexibility to add payroll, but only for a player who would “significantly improve our prospects.”
“In talking to the staff, it’s not as if we feel we need a silver bullet,” Neukom said. “These guys are showing they can do it. We’re hoping they will.”
The Giants are looking at players such as Pittsburgh second baseman Freddy Sanchez, but the real prize would be a power-hitting cleanup hitter, preferably right-handed, who would allow them to move Bengie Molina down in the order. While Molina has done a creditable job driving in runs, he has drawn just three walks. That’s unprecedented for any player, let alone a No. 4 hitter.
“If the Giants add just one good hitter, they’re the best team in the division — including the Dodgers,” one N.L. West talent evaluator said.
The A’s are attempting to move Matt Holliday, but if the Chicago White Sox ever put outfielder Jermaine Dye on the trade market, he’d be an ideal fit. Toronto third baseman Scott Rolen is the kind of player General Manager Brian Sabean loves, but he’s owed $11 million next year.
2. Would an unimproved offense score enough?
Sandoval’s 15 home runs are the most by a Giant at the break since Barry Bonds had 17 in 2007, and for the first time since breaking ties with the all-time home run king, the club is beginning to gain an offensive identity.
Despite a brutal start, the Giants no longer rank last in the league in home runs, slugging or on-base percentage. But they still have to buck a little conventional wisdom if they hope to keep playing after the 162nd game.
They rank last in the N.L. by a wide margin with 200 walks. (Entering Thursday, the Dodgers led with 356; the Pirates were next to last with 264.) Only one N.L. team in the past 37 years, the 1989 Chicago Cubs, made the playoffs while finishing last in the league in walks.
And while the Giants’ scoring average has improved every month, the overall mark of 4.18 runs per game is more than a quarter-run lower than the league average of 4.44. Just four N.L. teams since 1969 — the 2006 Padres (minus-.25), the 1996 Dodgers (minus-.34), the 1981 Houston Astros (minus-.33) and the 1973 New York Mets (minus-.37) have made the playoffs while scoring a quarter-run below than the league average.
3. Will the pitching hold up?
When you throw a shutout, you win. Simple as that. And the Giants are on pace for 24 shutouts, a number two clubs — the 1992 Atlanta Braves and 1998 Dodgers — have reached in 40 years. (Both those clubs reached the World Series, by the way.)
But Johnson is on the disabled list with a strained rotator cuff. Cain received a scare Saturday when a line drive smacked his pitching elbow. Sanchez is coming off a historic performance, but before that, he completed six innings in just two of his first 13 starts — and he won’t face the San Diego Padres every time, either. Ryan Sadowski has been a wonderful short story, but there’s little to suggest it’ll be a Pulitzer prize-winning novel.
The Giants believe the Big Unit’s shoulder will improve with a couple of weeks’ rest, but at 45, there’s no guarantees. Cain expects to start Sunday at Pittsburgh, but nobody will breathe easy until he starts pumping 94 mph fastballs.
Lincecum proved his mettle last season, when he led the N.L. in pitches thrown. It’s vital that the Giants’ baby-faced ace remains strong through September, and possibly beyond.
One other item in the Giants’ favor: Their bullpen, which leads the N.L. with a 3.29 ERA, has thrown the second-fewest innings among N.L. clubs. The N.L. West-leading Dodgers have thrown the most relief innings in the league.
4. Will they stay healthy?
Joe Martinez’s skull fracture aside, the Giants had been extraordinarily lucky on the injury front before Johnson’s shoulder problem.
But while the minor league system has made huge strides, the Giants don’t have the upper-level depth to survive the kind of epidemic that hit the New York Mets. And if anything should happen to Sandoval or Lincecum, it would be disastrous.
5. Will they handle the pressure?
Neukom raves about the esprit de corps under Manager Bruce Bochy, who along with Sabean, is in the final year of his contract.
“A lot of it is the players themselves, but I think Bruce has found a good way to bring them together as a team so they care about each other, they pick each other up, and most importantly, they cross that line in the first inning and they feel they’re going to win the game,” Neukom said. “They’ve got the ability to do it and they’ve shown it.”
Some contending teams suffer a letdown when they don’t receive a boost at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. Maybe it’s because they are surprise contenders, but closer Brian Wilson said the Giants don’t feel any inadequacies.
“What’s another guy going to do that these 25 guys can’t?” said Wilson, who hasn’t pitched in pennant-race pressure yet. “It’s not about going out with confidence. It’s about playing the way we’re supposed to play. This is us. This is who we are.”
Yet they haven’t accomplished anything yet. A pragmatist like Neukom knows that.
“We all understand,” he said, “that the second half is going to be harder.”