TORONTO — Aaron Boone was preparing for the Cubs-Cardinals opener, Giancarlo Stanton was readying for his seventh Opening Day start in right field for the Marlins and the Yankees were on the brink of what is likely to be their last scholarship campaign for a long, long time.

Boone has moved on from ESPN, Stanton from baseball purgatory and the Yankees from rare lowered expectations.

“It is much different than this time last year,” Brett Gardner acknowledged.

The Yankees are back in more familiar terrain — star-studded, being the hunted and having huge expectations. The scholarship they played under last year when any result — good or bad — would have been tolerated is gone, largely because the Yanks performed so surprisingly well in 2017 and yes, of course, because they added the NL MVP in Stanton.

They feel, in fact, not just on the precipice of a season, but yet another era of excellence owing to their brew of young major league talent, a teeming farm system and the ability in coming years to spend more freely.

And, in a way, this is the Yankees’ opponent as much as the Blue Jays this weekend or the Rays at home next week. They are back to being the Yankees. They have returned to the championship-or-bust terrain. Canyon of Heroes or depth of despair.

No use in ignoring it — and Gardner said they didn’t. There were plenty of impromptu clubhouse group chats about the cauldron and a few mandatory ones led by Chad Bohling, the Yankees’ director of mental conditioning.

“Just try to win the day,” Dellin Betances said of the mindset the team must adapt. “You can’t get too ahead or dwell on bad moments. You have to play the game every day, enjoy the process, deal with the ups and downs.”

They encounter this challenge with a different level of fame from last year. With an unproven manager. And with a new star who has never played an important major league game in his career.

The greater fame was well illustrated Wednesday — about 24 hours from first pitch — when a representative for the sports apparel company with which Aaron Judge had recently signed a lucrative deal showed up in the clubhouse with a big bag of goodies. A year ago, Judge was just a guy who had struck out in half of his at-bats in a disappointing 2016 cameo. Today he is the face of the game — with feet encased in signature spikes.

Everything Judge has shown, to date, suggests he will handle this well, including brandishing the aptitude and fortitude to recover from that cameo to become the face of baseball. The same goes for Opening Day starter Luis Severino, so disappointing in the rotation in 2016 and nearly the Cy Young winner last season. And, really, this could be said about the whole Yankee team.

Remember how thin the margin of error to success felt last year? And then the Yanks lost Didi Gregorius and Gary Sanchez for most of April and operated in that first month with a physically compromised Greg Bird. But Judge and Severino and the length of the team’s skill and character established the talent/tenacity blend that would enwrap them. And the postseason was their tour de force — recovering from 0-3 down on the scoreboard in the wild-card game against the Twins and 0-2 down in games in the Division Series against the Indians, before nearly recovering from 0-2 down in the ALCS versus the Astros.

But nothing stays the same. Joe Girardi — proven major league manager — was ousted. Boone — zero days in uniform as a non-player — was asked to take over a team ready to win. Now. And then a few days into the job, he was told, oh, by the way, you have Stanton. That elevates the talent — but also the old pressure gauge.

“I feel like we are prepared,” Boone said. “I feel like we had a good spring.”

They avoided the devastating. Bird is hurt again, but the Giants, for example, open their season without Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija for a while, and it might be over before it begins for a team that actually has a larger payroll than the Yankees.

Even with 2018 payroll restrictions, the Yanks added Brandon Drury and Neil Walker with spring training already underway to deepen an already strong lineup

that will unleash Judge and Stanton in the two-three holes

in Thursday’s opener. Severino — displaying further refinement on and off the mound — gets the start and behind him just might be the

best pen ever assembled

.

These are the last few exciting moments before a first date when you can dream on the possibilities, project the best hopes and dreams.

“Now, we get to roll it out and see how good we are,” Boone said.

Stanton is here, the scholarship is gone, the Yankees are the Yankees again.