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Suddenly, Nick Evans and Dan Murphy are platooning in left and Eddie Kunz is in the bullpen.

Suddenly, Omar Minaya is operating on the younger-and-more-athletic platform that won us over a few years ago.

I'm supposed to like this. I get on my soapbox and holler for this. The Mets are putting faith in young players and protecting their prospects. Those are good things. They are. But somehow, instead of pleased, I'm baffled. Fiercely and astoundingly perplexed.

Look: I like Evans and I think he'll be a nice ballplayer. He's just not ready to be one yet. If the Mets were a fourth-place team giving a young player a chance to adjust to the league, count me in. But this is a team in a pennant race with allusions to grandeur and a bungled managerial ousting in the rear-view mirror. This is not the place for a 22-year-old kid with no Triple-A experience, playing out of position.

You could make the case to keep Murphy around, because he was a more disciplined hitter than Evans in the Minors and appears more comfortable in the field. But you don't want to be running out a Murphy/Evans platoon. Two rookies with a combined four Minor League at-bats above Double-A do not equal a Major League left fielder. Especially when they're both infielders by trade.

I know it's not Plan A. I know about the run of injuries. I know we all thought Moises Alou would play 140 games this season, Ryan Church wouldn't take his "head-first player" tag so literally, and Marlon Anderson would hit .400 off the bench.

But whether Evans and Murphy are Plan B or C or D, I can't understand why the Mets haven't gone to Plan VP.

Val Pascucci, of course.

Half of the people reading this just clicked away from the page, so if you've stayed with me you're at least open to the concept. Know this: I've been going on about this for quite some time and have heard plenty of reasons why Pascucci should not be on the Mets. With the way the current team is constructed -- with Evans, Robinson Cancel and Damion Easley alternating in situations calling for right-handed power off the bench -- they just don't make sense.

Thanks to Evans, Murphy and Cancel, people have given up on the old "he's not a proven Major Leaguer" argument. Now they suggest he doesn't look the part or there wouldn't be room for his hulking 6-foot-6 frame on the team charter. Or they claim Valentino Pascucci is living on the lam, wanted by the feds for terrorizing the Pacific Coast League. All possible.

But there's a pesky, nearly indisputable argument that keeps coming back: The Mets must see something in Pascucci that won't translate to the Major Leagues.

Major League pitchers would figure him out in his first at-bat, and he wouldn't get a single hit for his entire stay with the club, they say. You see, there's some sort of pitch combination that every single Major League pitcher knows that not a single Triple-A pitcher does. It's a secret code they give you when you get to The Show, but you have to give it back when you get demoted. It's all very complex. He'd be exposed a minute into his stay in the bigs, even though he has yet to be exposed in the Pacific Coast League in his fourth season in the league. Those three home runs he hit Saturday? Hogwash.

Needless to say, I'm unconvinced.

At this point, I've heard just about every argument there is for keeping Pascucci off the Mets. I'm just not buying any of them. No one's asking him to be a savior. The Mets need a bat, and they're obviously willing to forgo defense in left field to get one, and they're obviously not opposed to calling up an unproven Minor Leaguer to do it. But until they forgo one member of their ballclub for Pascucci, they're forgoing wins.

As for Kunz: My instinct was to say Kunz shouldn't have been called up because of his underwhelming strikeout-to-walk ratio and his habit of letting too many runners reach base. But Mike Rudner made the case for Kunz to me on Sunday night's edition of the NY Metscast, and he may have won me over.

As Mike pointed out, Kunz hasn't allowed a home run since his freshman year of college. He struggled out of the gate in Binghamton but settled down in May and June. In July and his first outing of August, Kunz did not allow a run. He surrendered only six hits and three walks while striking out 10 in 12 2/3 innings. A miniscule sample size, for sure, but it can't be a bad sign. It seems like Kunz reined in his control over the past month and it's made him a much more effective pitcher. After the way the Mets' bullpen has been overused and overmatched of late, Kunz could bring welcome -- pardon the pun -- relief.