The last time we saw Giancarlo Stanton, he was nursing a calf injury that’d forced him into an MRI tube for what felt like the 20th time since he became a Yankee. It wasn’t a particularly serious setback – the slugger would’ve been ready by Opening Day – but it did little to endear him to fans who wonder when (or if) they’ll ever see the real Stanton.

You know, the circus strong man who arrived in 2018 with the promise of tearing up the Bronx. As the National League’s reigning MVP, fresh off a 59-home run season with the Marlins, Stanton was a good bet to overpower the Stadium’s tiny dimensions in right and right-center.

But he’s been hurt – a lot. With biceps, shoulder and knee injuries Stanton was a non-factor in 2019, appearing in just 18 games. He healed in time for the ALCS against the Astros but suffered a strained right quad in Game 1.

Fast-forward to spring training and Stanton looked and sounded like a beaten man after tweaking his calf. It’s been an endless loop of frustration. “(The latest injury) makes it seem that I don’t take care of myself, you know?” he said to reporters. “That makes it more frustrating.”

Stanton has yet to build equity with the fans. Every misstep digs the hole a little deeper, from the strikeouts (211 in 2018), to the drop-off in HRs (cut almost in half from ‘17) and of course, the weeks and weeks on the injured list.

But to a man, the Yankees vouch for their teammate. They say Stanton works tirelessly in the cage, shows up at the ballpark early and never mouths off in front of the cameras. And contrary to how it might appear to outsiders, his courage is unquestioned by the Bombers. Stanton has earned the benefit of the doubt after bouncing back from a horrific beaning in September 2014.

To say Stanton was hit in the head in a game against the Brewers is merely the sanitized Disney description. The bones and nerves in Stanton’s face were destroyed by Mike Fiers’ fastball; some were repaired, some remain permanently damaged. That’s why today’s strains and pulls and twinges drive Stanton crazy – they’re nothing compared to the pitch that almost killed him.

Researching a book I was writing about the Yankees, we discussed this incident during Stanton’s first spring training in pinstripes. He struck me as quite serious, polite but uninterested in small talk. But I knew our histories were bound by similar bad luck: I’d been hit in the face by a batted ball while pitching in a semi-pro league in 2008.

The line drive shattered my cheek bone and orbitals. My retina was detached, cornea lacerated. It took seven surgeries, including two corneal transplants, to eventually put everything back together and restore my vision.

I told Stanton the impact was as loud as an M-80 going off in my skull.

“Man, so you know what’s it like,” he said. “For me, the sound was more like an intense hissing. I’ll never forget that.”

He began by explaining he never saw the pitch coming. Or, more accurately, he lost track of it ten feet before the plate. It’s a hitter’s vanishing point. Not that they blink, the pitch literally disappears in the last milliseconds of travel. A good hitter’s swing-path, honed by instinct and training, is still just guesswork. So is his decision to duck.

Stanton, however, didn’t budge as Fiers’ rising two-seam fastball went straight for his face.

“From here to that couch — I never saw it after that,” he said, pointing to a sofa in the Yankees clubhouse. “All I felt was impact, and then falling on the ground. The whole side of my face was gone — I felt sharp pieces in my mouth. I was trying to be soft with them because I didn’t want to choke, but the pain was excruciating.”

A panicked silence fell over Miller Park as trainers raced to the plate. They attempted to roll Stanton onto his back but he fought them. Unable to speak, blood filling his mouth, he thought he’d drown if he didn’t stay put on his side.

“I was afraid I’d swallow my teeth,” Stanton said, patting the side of his face where a hole had been sliced open by his incisors. A doctor at the hospital, “put his finger right through it, like I was a fish he’d hooked.”

Stanton’s bones were broken, teeth cutting into his lips. That fall, surgeons fused the breaks in his lower jaw and cheekbone. Stanton’s teeth were implanted but his facial nerves had been severed. A swath of his left cheek is permanently numb. He traced a two-inch crescent from his lip.

“I can’t feel that,” he said. “I’ve gotten used to it – sort of. But when I smile that part won’t go up as high.”

Such trauma could’ve effectively ended Stanton’s career, if not his life. Ray Chapman died after being beaned by Carl Mays in 1920. Tony Conigliaro, who’d hit 100 home runs for the Red Sox before he turned 23, was never the same after taking a fastball just below the eye in 1967. He returned a year-and-a-half later but was out of the game by age 30 with failing vision.

Mets captain David Wright, who was plunked by the Giants’ Matt Cain in 2009, took two years to find his equilibrium, and even then he was never the same home run hitter. Finishing his playing days in the new, larger Citi Field didn’t help, either.

Stanton? He’s vowed to never watch a video replay of Fiers’ pitch, although he was constantly reminded of it by up-and-in fastballs in 2015. Not that opponents wanted to end Stanton’s career. No, pitchers had a more insidious agenda: to learn whether the slugger who looked a bodybuilder was scared.

“It happened every game in my first year – and yes, that made me mad,” Stanton said. But aside from a C-flap extension on the left side of his helmet, he’s refused to give in.

Stanton has yet to duplicate his 2017 power, but even in his worst slumps and strikeout binges, Stanton still stands with his left shoulder pointed at the pitcher. He practically leads with his face.

That takes resolve. Or better yet, just plain guts.

Bob Klapisch is a freelance columnist who covers the Yankees and Major League Baseball for NJ Advance Media.