Dodgers writer's shots at Angels crowd rubbed salt in Shohei Ohtani wound

Shohei Ohtani returned to Angel Stadium on Tuesday for the first time in the regular season since he left the Angels in free agency. Ohtani gave the Angels three All-Star and two MVP seasons, and he was their Rookie of the Year in 2018. Less decorated players have gotten warm welcomes by their former home crowds — Justin Turner got a nice standing ovation from the Dodgers faithful in August — so it only stood to reason that Ohtani would be greeted accordingly by Angels fans.

That's not exactly what happened, though. Angels fans like to make a big deal about the Freeway Series rivalry, but the crowd at Angel Stadium was conspicuously thin (and most of the fans there were in Dodger blue) for Game 1 of the second Dodgers-Angels set of the season. Anaheim is in last place in the AL West, and maybe their fans just didn't want to watch them get pummeled by big brother. And that's true fandom, folks!

LA Times writer Dylan Hernández wrote incredulously of the light and mostly Angel fan-less crowd, "He didn’t receive a deafening ovation. He wasn’t targeted with furious boos. [...] Ohtani wanted to come back to this?"

Absent Angels fans during Shohei Ohtani's return continue to show exactly why he left to join the Dodgers

Ohtani went 1-for-4 with an intentional walk on Tuesday and scored two runs, the second off the bat of a furious Mookie Betts, who came up right behind Ohtani after Ron Washington gave the MVP front-runner a free base. Betts saw a hanging slider right down the middle and sent it 421 feet over the left-center field wall to score three in extra innings. That's the thing about trying to pitch around (or refusing to pitch at all) to the top of this Dodgers lineup. Evade one MVP, and another steps up right behind him.

Although Ohtani went homer-less and stolen base-less on Tuesday, he's still just one pitch away from becoming the first player to have a 45-45 year, and he's due for a homer over these next few days. It'd be more surprising if it doesn't happen at Angel Stadium than if it does.

We all knew that Ohtani made the right choice when he signed with the Dodgers. Even if he wanted to go back to the Angels, even if they had offered the same amount of money, why would he? The Angels continue to prove that they're a floundering franchise and aren't willing to do much of anything to remedy that. Ohtani is exactly where he should be.