On Tuesday night, the Dodgers played nine innings of food at Angel Stadium.

It wasn’t until overtime, thanks to a four-run rally led by a three-run homerun by Mookie Betts, that they were finally able to assert their dominance over the last-place Angels.

In the first of this week’s two-game Freeway Series, the Dodgers won 6-2 before a sellout crowd of 44,731 in Anaheim. The crowd was split between Angels fans and a raucous group of Dodgers fans who had all come to see Shohei Ohtani return to his old home stadium.

“The most important thing is that we win the game and I’m happy that we won,” Ohtani said afterward through interpreter Will Ireton. “The most important thing is that we get to play in this stadium and in front of these fans. That’s the part that was special for me.”

Ohtani provided fireworks in the third inning, hitting an RBI triple into the right field corner and scoring on an RBI single by Betts.

After that, however, things went quiet around the Dodgers. They struck out 16 batters in total (including 10 against Reid Detmers, the Angels’ starter who entered the game with an ERA of over 6.00) before finally breaking the 2-2 tie in the tenth inning.

Mookie Betts celebrates his three-run homerun with Shohei Ohtani in the 10th inning.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Miguel Rojas scored in extra innings with an RBI single on a first-pitch sinker to left field.

After Ohtani was intentionally walked with first base open, Betts secured the knockout with a hanging slider to left for his 15th home run of the season.

“I understand their perspective,” Betts said of Ohtani running ahead of him. “So I just tried to hit a good pitch.”

It was only the third time in Betts’ career that the batter in front of him was intentionally walked. The other two? Free passes to David Ortiz in 2016, according to SportsNet LA, when Betts was with the Boston Red Sox.

“It’s a tough situation to let a guy who got $700 (million) walk away to get to the guy who got $350 (million),” starting pitcher Walker Buehler joked of Ohtani and Betts. “He’s pretty good at baseball, too.”

The late barrage of goals ended the Dodgers’ barrage of empty-hits earlier in the game. Their season-record 16 strikeouts put paid to a lineup that was red-hot after last weekend’s series win in Arizona.

Detmers, making his first major league start since June 1 after being recalled from Triple A, kept the Dodgers off balance with an improved fastball that touched 95 mph, renewing concerns about the club’s sometimes-poor ability to generate strike velocity this season.

The club didn’t fare much better against the Angels’ bullpen, either, allowing a leadoff walk from Chris Taylor in the eighth inning before being blown out in the ninth by Angels closer Ben Joyce – whose fastball set a season-high 105.5 mph.

In the end, it didn’t matter much. The Dodgers extended their lead in the National League West to 5 ½ games in the 10th inning, with just 23 games left in the season.

“If you look back over the last couple of weeks, we’ve played some intense baseball games,” said manager Dave Roberts, with his team 18-6 since Aug. 9. “So tonight against a team that’s trying to compete and play good baseball, some young players, it’s a game you don’t want to let down.”

Shohei Ohtani celebrates his goal against the Angels.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

In his first regular-season game in Anaheim since signing with the Dodgers this winter, Ohtani immediately turned heads.

His first performance drew only a mild reaction from a still-streaming crowd – and from Ohtani himself, who barely removed his helmet for a second before an image of his Angels’ performance quickly appeared on the board.

After grounding out in that first at bat, Ohtani’s second at bat provided more of a reaction, as he lined out to right field for his seventh triple of the year.

“If you look back at today’s game, there were times where we didn’t get through,” Ohtani said. “But there were times where we were able to take advantage and that’s the way we try to win games. I think it’s really good for us as a team that we were able to do that tonight.”

And what about Betts’s killer blast in the 10th inning?

“I’m not really surprised that Mookie broke through like that,” Ohtani said. “It’s the way we like to end the game.”

The other positive sign for the Dodgers on Tuesday: Buehler’s performance in a five-inning, two-run, six-strikeout start. It was the second straight game in which the 30-year-old right-handed pitcher said he was feeling “back to normal” after undergoing second-career Tommy John surgery.

Similar to last week, Buehler was more efficient early (12 of 21 strikes on the first pitch) and was especially effective with the curveball, accounting for four of his six strikeouts in an 83-pitch game.

“I think Walker is in competition mode right now,” Roberts said. “I think that’s important, when you’re in September (and) you’ve got a couple more starts until we get to the postseason, and he’s trying to get some traction and become the pitcher he was.”

Buehler gave up two homers. Logan O’Hoppe hit a 2-and-2 cutter that caught too much of the plate in the second inning. Taylor Ward hit a drive just inside the right-field foul pole the other way in the fifth.

But for a pitcher trying to make a run in the Dodgers’ postseason rotation plans, Buehler saw the game as a significant step forward, lowering his ERA to 5.67 (the lowest since mid-June).

“I would have liked to have felt that way in April,” said Buehler, who has now made four starts since returning from a hip injury last month. “But at the end of the day, I’ve got a month to put the finishing touches on how I feel as a major league starting player and how I can help us win the playoffs.”

Where exactly the Dodgers will be once they get there is still uncertain. Yoshinobu Yamamoto managed just two innings Tuesday night in a rehab start with Triple-A Oklahoma City (presumably meaning he needs one more rehab outing before returning to the majors). Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw both played catch pregame as they work toward their returns from elbow and toe injuries, respectively.

One thing, however, is becoming increasingly certain: the Dodgers’ spot in the playoffs.

On Tuesday it looked for a moment as if they were heading for the disappointment that Roberts warned about.

But as they have been doing more and more lately, they still found a way to pull off an important victory.

“It’s always important to keep the momentum going,” Betts said. “Sometimes momentum doesn’t come your way. You’ve got to find ways to create it. But at any given time, you just have to keep grinding.”