TORONTO — The Yankees have lost 14 of 20.

 Before beating the Brewers on Thursday night, the Mets had dropped 14 of 18.

With the second iteration of the 2025 Subway Series beginning Friday afternoon at Citi Field, both clubs' reactionary fan bases will be on edge, even more so than usual, as the last three weeks have given them reason to expect the worst.

The Yankees (48-39), who held a seven-game lead in the AL East as recently as May 28, are  one game behind the Blue Jays after four straight losses to Toronto. The Mets led the rugged NL East — a far superior division to the AL East — by 5 ½ games as recently as June 12 before their freefall brought them to 50-38, 1 1/2 games behind the Phillies.

“Obviously, both teams are struggling,” Aaron Boone said Thursday before his team unsuccessfully tried to avoid a four-game sweep. “I think both teams are really good. We happen to both be going through it at the same time. It’s always meaningful, though, when you get to play in the big city against the opposing team in the city, so I’m sure it will be exciting.”

The first Subway Series, May 16-18 at the Stadium, must seem like a lifetime ago for the teams.

Both clubs were flying high entering the series. The Yankees were 25-18 and had won six of their last eight; the Mets were 28-16 and had won five of their last seven. And even the Yankees winning two of three did little to derail Carlos Mendoza’s team, which would win 16 of its next 22 games before starting to crater in mid-June, much as the Yankees did.

Will the series have a different feel with the teams slumping simultaneously? “Not really,” Aaron Judge said. “Struggling, playing good, we’ve got two good ballclubs, that’s what it comes down to. We’re going to see each other at some point during the year, sometimes you’re struggling, sometimes you’re not. But when you step across those lines and you’re playing the Mets and the stadium’s packed with orange and blue and pinstripes, all that kind of goes out the window. Something special always happens.”

The No. 1 storyline from the first Subway Series — and there wasn’t a close No. 2 — was Juan Soto’s return to the Bronx. Soto spent 2024 with the Yankees and would have been in the AL MVP discussion had it not been for Judge’s season before signing a North American professional sports record contract with the Mets, $765 million over 16 years.

Soto was in the midst of a miserable start to his season during that series and did not emerge from that slump at the Stadium. Booed vociferously before every at-bat and each time he trotted to rightfield, Soto was a non-factor in the three games, going 1-for-10 with four walks, three strikeouts and two runs.

Not surprisingly, Soto has turned his season around, winning the NL Player of the Month award for June. He entered Thursday hitting  .257 but with 20 homers, 47 RBIs, an MLB-leading 71 walks and an .895 OPS.

The first Yankees pitcher to get a crack at Soto will be former Met Marcus Stroman, who will make his second start after coming off the injured list last week.

“He’s had a Juan-like month,” Boone said. “It’ll be a challenge holding him down. Comes down to executing at a really high level, so we’ll see.”

Neither team, of course, has done that with any regularity of late.

 Reigning AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil, who started the season on the injured list with a right lat strain, threw 35 pitches in two innings in the second simulated game of his rehab Thursday at the Stadium. Boone said the organization hasn’t yet decided if the next step for Gil will be another simulated game or the start of a rehab assignment . . . Austin Wells, who entered Wednesday’s game as a pinch runner but who had not started since Saturday because of a circulation issue in his left index finger, returned to the lineup Thursday.