Shohei Ohtani’s first Dodgers HR has extremely weird baseball history attached to it

A certain quiet has taken to falling over Dodger Stadium every time Shohei Ohtani comes to bat. Maybe it's because a lot of the crowd is too busy whipping out their phones in case something extraordinary happens, but there's certainly some kind of reverence whenever Ohtani gets into his stance.

After a quiet start to the season, Dodgers fans finally got exactly what they'd come to see on Wednesday night. In the bottom of the seventh, as LA was only up by one run and looking to complete a sweep against the rival Giants, Ohtani came to the plate. He took a ball, a called strike, two more balls, then belted a monster home run (105.6 MPH off the bat) to deep right center.

That distinctive crack gave it away immediately. Almost as soon as the bat met the ball, Dodger Stadium was on its feet. Statcast clocked its traveled distance at 430 feet.

Ohtani decisively planted a flag, sure to be the first of many, in his tenure in LA — and in front of the home crowd, at that. This was always going to happen, yes, but his timing couldn't be more storybook. Exactly six years before, he hit his first MLB home run (a grand slam, at that) as an Angel.

Shohei Ohtani's first Dodgers home run finally came, exactly six years after his first Angels home run

In 37 at-bats so far this season, Ohtani has underperformed despite still hitting decently, overshadowed by Mookie Betts, who's off to the hottest possible start, Freddie Freeman doing Freddie Freeman things, and Teoscar Hernández absolutely crushing the ball. Ohtani is behind all three, as well as Will Smith and Max Muncy, in RBI, and even behind Miguel Rojas in home runs.

However, Ohtani (who's probably had a lot on his mind to start the season) clearly now has his feet firmly underneath him. When he came back to the dugout after his Angels home run, his teammates hit him with the silent treatment before dogpiling him. It was different with the Dodgers — he was immediately greeted by a shower of sunflower seeds to the face by Hernández.

The era of Shohei Ohtani in LA has officially begun.