Yankees literally refuse to let anyone have fun after miracle rally, Aaron Judge HR

New York Yankees fans have quite literally not been allowed to have a fun summer since 2019. It's become a repetitive running joke to count on a June or July malaise, but it's rare to actually consider how far back it goes. In 2020, the pandemic robbed us all of anything resembling a baseball season. In '21, the Yankees shook off an under-.500 June to surge (but that season featured a proliferation of gags against the Red Sox ... and at the Field of Dreams ... and every loss was impossible to stomach). From 2022 to 2025, the Yankees have annually watched their lead wither away in a matter of weeks, plodding to what nominally amounts to a .500 record in June, July and August combined. Every. Single. Year.

That's not to say there isn't occasional innovation in the art of middling. The 2021 and 2025 Yankees, in particular, seem adept at coming up with new varietals of losses, from blowouts, to disappearing acts, to comebacks-turned-implosions-turned-stirring-moments-turned-implosions-again, which is what we all blessedly received on Wednesday night - unless, of course, you turned it off early. In which case, what are you doing?! And also ... you were right!

Down 8-0 in the top of the fifth inning, the Yankees rallied for six runs, capped by Giancarlo Stanton's majestic first home run of the season.

Six isn't eight, though, and after cutting things to 8-7, watching Anthony Volpe squander a first-and-second scenario with a killer double play, and allowing a solo home run to Davis Schneider while the "Volpe's WAR matters/doesn't matter!" debate was raging, Low-Leverage Aaron Judge (as losers call him) stepped up and stomped on an ill-placed breaking ball.

Yankees' miraculous rally - featuring memorable Aaron Judge home run - undone vs. Blue Jays thanks to Devin Williams

Pandemonium - or, if you were in Toronto, utter silence.

And yet, while Yankees fans outwardly celebrated, inwardly, they could only think about two things:

• This better not turn into extra innings on the road.
• We haven't felt prosperity for a month, and it doesn't feel like we're about to start now.

It is a summer, after all. And summers aren't meant to be fun anymore. Not for us.

Aaron Boone, with a deadened bullpen, brought a rested Devin Williams in for the eighth inning of a tie game. It was smart. It was cutthroat. It didn't work. For the first time in months, Williams struggled, bouncing a wild pitch past catcher/first baseman Ben Rice with two outs. 10-9. 11-9. Neat.

And so Judge's home run, instead of becoming a season-defining smash, just became his record 994,027th massive game-tying/lead-grabbing moment to go for naught instead. If Judge has taken an opposing crowd's breath away, it seems almost a guarantee that the Yankees will find a way to deflate and erase it from the history books. Game 3 in Cleveland. The last day before the All-Star break in Houston, 2021. Garrett Crochet.

Now, all we're left with is another blank page that says, "Artifact Removed: Sorry, It's the Summer."