Shohei Ohtani was right at home in the Tokyo Dome as he and the Los Angeles Dodgers opened up the MLB regular season with a two-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Series earlier this week. The reigning NL MVP still hasn't returned to the mound but that didn't stop him from dominating the Cubs. In the two-game affair overseas, Ohtani went 3-for-8 with a double, two walks and a home run.
That long ball in the second game of the series, however, caused some controversy. Even on the FS1 broadcast, there were questions about whether or not the ball actually cleared the fence or if there was fan interference that ultimately caused it to look like a homer. The umpires ruled that it was a home run and that stood, much to the chagrin of Cubs fans who were up in arms.
Naturally, Dodgers fans acted super rationally, even more than 24 hours after the fact, to defend Ohtani and the home run. And by rationally, we of course mean the exact opposite.
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Dodgers fans get completely irrational defending Shohei Ohtani's Tokyo Series home run
Over on Reddit, a user named "Pin_Active" posted a video the baseball subreddit entitled "A very clear shot of Ohtani's home run bouncing off the ceiling of the dome". The video does make it appear that the ball off the Dodgers star's bat may have hit the roof of the dome, but it's also wild to call the video clear, much less "very clear", given the pretty grainy footage trying to see a white ball hit an off-white roof of the Tokyo Dome.
I just took the screenshot of that and still struggled to find where the ball was in it. That should tell you about everything.
Perhaps the most ridiculous part of this, though, is that it really doesn't matter if the ball hit the roof or not. Yes, that would change the controversy surrounding the home run to some degree. Does that controversy actually matter at all, though? The umps ruled it a home run, it goes down in the regular season record books as a home run, and none of that is going to change. It doesn't really do a lot of good trying to disprove a conspiracy when it's not even remotely close to a grand one.
If this is how Dodgers fans are going to defend Ohtani and this team through just two games out of 162, then the fans of 29 other teams might need to buckle up. It could be a bumpy ride if we're going to get a Zapruder Film like breakdown of everything that gets pointed out as even mildly controversial to make sure everyone knows that the Dodgers were in the right.