Eventually, the 2025 New York Yankees season turned. They swooned during the summer, as Aaron Boone teams are wont to do. The Toronto Blue Jays overwhelmed them. So did the Boston Red Sox. So did the Texas Rangers (until the finale). There was an awful two-month stretch where the Yankees repeatedly let their direct opponents pass them in the playoff race until their coronation had gone from "inevitable" to "questioned" to "perilously far away".
But there were moments when everything seemed perfect, many of them clustered in the season's first two months. There was evidence of a plan coming together.