You gotta hit, you gotta pitch, you gotta catch. And some days, one or more of those aspects of the game is going to go bad. Some days, even the best team just doesn't have a real chance to win.

So it stands that one key difference between the best and the rest is to win on the days when things do go right. The psychological side of a blown save is almost certainly overstated, but the baseball side is stark. A blown save or a bullpen loss means that your team did nearly everything well enough to win -- except for the last thing.

Just ask the Mets.

No serious contender has more blown saves than New York's 29. No serious contender has a lower save percentage than the 59 percent posted by the Mets (though the Marlins are right there with them). Among teams with any viable shot at playing in October, only Arizona has more bullpen losses.

With a more airtight bullpen, the Mets might have already secured a spot in October.

"Our bullpen, with that type of stress, it's difficult," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "Our biggest thing is, in order for us to do what we need to do, we need to add on runs. We need to make it less stressful for our bullpen."

Better yet, ask the Cardinals, whose squandered ninth-inning leads relegated them from contender to also-ran.

At least the Mets are still in the mix, though without their second-half bullpen follies they might be running away with things in the National League East. St. Louis is tied for the Major League lead in bullpen losses, second in baseball in blown saves (worse than New York and topped only by Seattle) and 25th in save percentage.

It's important to make a differentiation here. There's the ninth inning, and there's the whole of the bullpen. And they're not necessarily the same thing, nor even necessarily of equal quality on some teams.

Nobody in the game has a closer who's clearly better than Jonathan Papelbon, so when the Red Sox hold a lead into the ninth, they bring it home. But in front of Papelbon, Boston has scuffled a bit. Boston's pen ranks 18th in the Majors per Baseball Prospectus' WXRL metric, a complicated little number designed to determine how much a reliever increased or decreased his team's chances of winning.

On the flipside, the Rays have the best 'pen in baseball according to WXRL, and it rates very well by conventional numbers as well: fifth in bullpen ERA, fewest relief losses in baseball. Yet, whether it's been Troy Percival or Dan Wheeler, they don't necessarily have that total lockdown assassin in the ninth.

But back to the National League, where the subtleties go out the window. The Phillies have an exceptional closer, the best in the National League this year, in Brad Lidge. They also have depth, with quality right- and left-handers behind him. The Mets, meanwhile, have chaos in the ninth since Billy Wagner went down. And they have chaos in the sixth, seventh and eighth, as well.

And as a result, the Phillies are leading the National League East. New York and Philadelphia have scored virtually the same number of runs. Mets starters have allowed 31 fewer runs than Phillies starters while pitching seven fewer innings in one fewer game.

The Mets have a higher fielding percentage and a higher defensive efficiency rating. They've even stolen almost exactly the same number of bases (though the Phils have been caught fewer times). And head-to-head, the Mets have won 11 of 18 meetings.

By just about every other measure, and in virtually other every facet of the game, these two teams are equal, or the Mets have been better. But the Phillies bring the wins home when they have the lead. The Mets don't. And that's the difference right now between being division leaders and scrapping for the Wild Card.

"There's no explanation for it," Mets reliever Scott Schoeneweis said. "I just don't know what to say. We're not consistently making big pitches at big times. We do it one night, we don't do it the next night. There's really nothing more to say or explain or philosophize about or whatever. We've just got to get it done -- somehow."

It's not just the NL East, either. A similar story unfolds in the NL West, where the Dodgers have one of the game's best bullpens, and Arizona ... well, Arizona does not.

It's particularly notable that Los Angeles has done it with two different closers. Takashi Saito held the job until the All-Star break, when he sustained an elbow injury. When Jonathan Broxton took over, the Dodgers' relief corps didn't miss a beat, remaining among the Major League leaders in WXRL (sixth), relief ERA (second) and relief losses (third-fewest in NL).

And the Snakes? A bullpen surely consists of more than one man, but the post-Jose Valverde Arizona bullpen doesn't look so good. The D-Backs' 3.98 relief ERA is nearly three-fourths of a run higher than the Dodgers'. They're 20th in WXRL, more than six wins shy of the Dodgers. Arizona has 27 relief losses (five more than L.A.) and 23 blown saves (six more).

With a three-game difference in the standings, and no Wild Card possibility to bail out the runner-up in the division, relief work has very been a huge part of the story in the NL West. It's especially striking in light of last year's Diamondbacks bullpen, which did exceptional work.

For a great example of the difference between a bullpen that's solid overall, and one that protects leads, look to the American League Central. The White Sox (3.89) and Twins (3.94) have nearly identical relief ERAs. According to Baseball Prospectus' Fair Run Average measure, they're similar -- and in fact Minnesota rates a smidge better, 4.39 to 4.45.

But when it comes to turning a lead into a win, the White Sox have done it much better. Chicago rates 10th in WXRL to the Twins' 13th, but the real gap is much bigger than that. The White Sox are closer to the fifth-place A's than they are to the Twins. Chicago's 17 relief losses are second-best in the bigs, while Minnesota's 'pen has taken 26 defeats. And what do you know? The Sox hold the slim lead in the division race.

All of these teams, of course, do plenty of other things well. They hit, they catch, and their starters do the job. It's all part of winning baseball, and if you're a winning team after 156 games, you probably don't have many glaring weaknesses.

But as they all try to close out their seasons, like they try to close out wins, keep a close eye on the relief corps. It's remarkable how often the last impression is the lasting one.