By these first few days of September, Shohei Ohtani has been poised to make historical past actually each time he steps as much as the plate or will get on base. With their four-game sequence towards the Diamondbacks within the books, Ohtani has 44 dwelling runs and 46 stolen bases on the season, making him the only member of the 43-43 and 44-44 Golf equipment, properly on his approach to 45-45 and even 50-50 with over 20 video games left within the season.

Ohtani appeared to get again right into a groove towards the Diamondbacks, with a five-hit, two-homer, four-stolen base sequence after batting .235 in August, certainly one of his worst months within the majors. Per FanGraphs, he is on tempo for 50 homers and 51 stolen bases earlier than the 12 months is out.

Now only one homer away from 45, he and the Dodgers might be headed to Ohtani’s outdated stomping grounds in Anaheim for the primary time within the common season (he additionally visited for a spring coaching Freeway Collection in March) since he left in free company. The Angels are the large losers of the AL West this 12 months, with a worse document than even the soon-to-be homeless Athletics. There could not be a greater group for Ohtani to get to 45-45 towards.

Naturally, Jack Harris of the LA Occasions requested Ohtani about his free company forward of his return to Anaheim. He responded diplomatically, as all the time, however stated, “Different groups, together with the Dodgers, evaluated me extremely. […] I wasn’t made a suggestion [by the Angels], so I am unable to say [if I’d still be an Angel].”

Dodgers future MVP Shohei Ohtani continues to casually drop particulars about his free company that may devastate Angels followers additional

Ohtani saying that different groups evaluated him extremely positive does make it sound just like the Angels did not. However all of us kind of knew that, did not we? He was an Angel for six seasons, six seasons when Anaheim didn’t make the postseason and even elevate their heads above third place within the AL West. In addition they fully didn’t construct round Ohtani and Mike Trout throughout that window.

We already knew that Arte Moreno noticed the supply Ohtani obtained from the Dodgers and had the chance to match, however declined to take action. The Angels reportedly additionally haven’t any plan to honor Ohtani in his return to Angel Stadium, so that ought to just about communicate for itself (subscription required).

The sweetest potential factor that Ohtani might do is getting that forty fifth dwelling run in entrance of a wave of Angels followers, a lot of whom now hate him for going up the street to their massive brother group. Perhaps he’ll be capable of tack on a couple of extra for good measure. The Dodgers are completely positioned to bully Anaheim after a decisive sequence win towards an objectively significantly better group, and Ohtani might be main the cost to rub it in Angels’ followers faces all of the extra.