Albert Pujols retired from MLB after playing 22 seasons in the majors, the first 12 of which he spent with the St. Louis Cardinals. He then spent 10 seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, which coincided with the arrival of Shohei Ohtani.In 2018, when Shohei reached America, he looked up to Albert Pujols as an icon. The latter recalled on the MLB Network on Wednesday how Ohtani developed a leg action after assessing the Dominican's play."I saw Shohei Ohtani follow me around the first two or three weeks of spring training and never asked me any questions until one day he came in the cage and he asked me about why I did the tip-toe," Pujols said. "I was like, 'Well, that's that's how I hit. That's what I've been doing my whole career, especially with two-strikes, it just comes naturally.'"...And then all of a sudden Ohtani started doing it. I mean later on in that season, he started doing it because when he got to the league, he had a high leg kick. Yeah, and he was getting jammed. He didn't get that front foot down in time, especially for the breaking ball. So he saw that he was struggling, and sooner or later he started doing that tip-toe."Pujols then shared his admiration for Ohtani's continued improvement over the years. "It's pretty impressive what he has done over the last six or seven years, the adjustment that he made not just with the language, but getting strong, learning the league and then getting on that mound every fifth or six days. It's pretty special," Pujols added.In 2018, the Japanese star took the league by storm, winning the 2018 American League Rookie of the Year award. He batted .285 with 61 RBIs and 22 home runs in 114 games while carrying a .925 OPS. On the mound, he got a 4-2, 3.31 ERA from 10 starts.Since then, Ohtani's tip-top leg kick has become synonymous with his big swing. In 8 years in the big leagues with the Angels and now with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ohtani has a career .282 average with 646 RBIs and 268 home runs.Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers suffer sweep against AngelsShohei Ohtani did not have a happy homecoming as he and the Dodgers were swept in three games by the Angels. In the third game of the series on Wednesday, Ohtani took to the mound and pitched a season-high 4.1 innings, with seven strikeouts and four earned runs. After Ohtani exited with the lead in the fifth, the Dodgers' bullpen gave up two runs in the eighth as they lost 6-5.Ohtani had a strong series at the plate, though, as he finished with two homers and a triple in three games.The Angels swept their second three-game series against the crosstown rivals and now have a franchise-record seven-game win streak against them. The three losses dropped the Dodgers to second place in the NL West behind the San Diego Padres.