2024-09-04 06:20:02
Through these first few days of September, Shohei Ohtani has been poised to make history literally every time he steps up to the plate or gets on base. With their four-game series against the Diamondbacks in the books, Ohtani has 44 home runs and 46 stolen bases on the season, making him the sole member of the 43-43 and 44-44 Clubs, well on his way to 45-45 and even 50-50 with over 20 games left in the season.
Ohtani seemed to get back into a groove against the Diamondbacks, with a five-hit, two-homer, four-stolen base series after batting .235 in August, one of his worst months in the majors. Per FanGraphs, he’s on pace for 50 homers and 51 stolen bases before the year is out.
Now just one homer away from 45, he and the Dodgers will be headed to Ohtani’s old stomping grounds in Anaheim for the first time in the regular season (he also visited for a spring training Freeway Series in March) since he left in free agency. The Angels are the big losers of the AL West this year, with a worse record than even the soon-to-be homeless Athletics. There couldn’t be a better team for Ohtani to get to 45-45 against.
Naturally, Jack Harris of the LA Times asked Ohtani about his free agency ahead of his return to Anaheim. He responded diplomatically, as always, but said, “Other teams, including the Dodgers, evaluated me highly. […] I wasn’t made an offer [by the Angels], so I can’t say [if I’d still be an Angel].”
Ahead of his return to Anaheim tomorrow, asked Shohei Ohtani if he was surprised the Angels didn’t match the $700 million offer he signed with the Dodgers –– and whether he might still be an Angel if they had
His answers in Japanese (h/t @dylanohernandez on translation): pic.twitter.com/Cr85z1ah4S
— Jack Harris (@ByJackHarris) September 3, 2024
Dodgers future MVP Shohei Ohtani continues to casually drop details about his free agency that will devastate Angels fans further
Ohtani saying that other teams evaluated him highly sure does make it sound like the Angels didn’t. But we all sort of knew that, didn’t we? He was an Angel for six seasons, six seasons when Anaheim failed to make the postseason or even raise their heads above third place in the AL West. They also completely failed to build around Ohtani and Mike Trout during that window.
We already knew that Arte Moreno saw the offer Ohtani got from the Dodgers and had the opportunity to match, but declined to do so. The Angels reportedly also have no plan to honor Ohtani in his return to Angel Stadium, so that should pretty much speak for itself (subscription required).
The sweetest possible thing that Ohtani could do is getting that 45th home run in front of a wave of Angels fans, many of whom now hate him for going up the road to their big brother team. Maybe he’ll be able to tack on a few more for good measure. The Dodgers are perfectly positioned to bully Anaheim after a decisive series win against an objectively much better team, and Ohtani will be leading the charge to rub it in Angels’ fans faces all the more.
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