PHILADELPHIA – Scott Kazmir beat the Yankees yesterday, just three hours before Victor Zambrano went to the mound for the Mets.

Strictly coincidence? Ongoing evidence of a parallel universe? You be the judge, knowing the jury of public opinion last season voted for the execution of then-Met GM Jim Duquette after just one season.

There had to be more to the call Fred Wilpon made to Omar Minaya, offering him carte blanche, than just one trade of a prime left-handed pitching prospect for a guy who showed up with a bum elbow and a history of walking the ballpark. But with the Mets falling out of the race almost as soon as a deal designed to keep them in it was made, the image of Kazmir for Zambrano became almost as negative as the perception of the Wilpons as meddlers.

So a change was made to Minaya, and that led to the Mets getting Pedro Martinez, who led to Carlos Beltran. Not a bad thing, obviously, but it turns out neither is Zambrano, who last night lowered his ERA in his last seven starts to 2.80 and still couldn’t win his fourth game of the season, never mind an ERA more than a half-run better than Kazmir’s 4.62.

Now, there is such a thing as pitching just well enough for your team to lose. Throwing ball one to eight of the first nine Phillies he faced, one of which, Chase Utley doubled and scored when David Wright stupidly assumed a catch on a sinking liner he trapped, certainly caught up to the Met starter, as did Jim Thome to a 3-0 pitch the heretofore slumping slugger put into the right-field seats.

Still, Zambrano, who left the 8-4 Met loss with the game tied, 2-2, got Pat Burrell to ground into a double play to get out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the first, and threw 59 strikes to 48 balls. He left after six innings after being saved by Cliff Floyd on Kenny Lofton’s drive against the fence with the bases loaded on two walks.

But it can be argued Zambrano deserved a better fate, inexorably linked to Kazmir’s or not. In these seven games in which Zambrano has not looked like such a spectacular waste of potentially dominating lefty after all, the Mets have scored 11 runs. Somehow that is even less support than the Wilpons gave the demoted Duquette.

Time alone won’t tell us what kind of a trade this will turn out to be. Both teams worried about both pitchers’ elbow wear and tear in more ways than one.

Had the Mets waited until the offseason to deal Kazmir, more accomplished options, like Tim Hudson, would have been available. Not only is hindsight wonderful, but foresight might have enabled Duquette to know the Wilpons, who had cut the player budget by $20 million last season, would kick it back up by a similar amount to make splashes with Martinez and Beltran.

Zambrano was a 29-year-old major-league veteran with a winning career record for a bad team, too, and was universally acknowledged to have electric stuff, making $2.1 million a year, not eligible for free agency until 2007.

So if he continues pitching to this level, Zambrano, at worst, is a cost-effective inning-eater, maybe more if the Mets could finally score for him, if the bullpen could turn the six hits he allowed over six innings into something positive.

Royce Ring, Dae-Sung Koo and especially Aaron Heilman, doing nothing to make claim on Kaz Ishii’s spot in the rotation, detonated a six-run Phils’ seventh, leaving Zambrano’s efforts for naught, not that you are surprised.

Ishii goes today, with no indication, despite a 1-6 record and 5.40 ERA, he is about to have the plug pulled. Pedro Martinez has been everything expected, Kris Benson has been fine, and then there are a lot of gray areas, including a pitcher with 2.80 ERA in his last seven games, who somehow won only once.