ANAHEIM — The faces have mostly changed.

The reaction hasn’t.

From the athletic trainers to the coaches to the players, the Houston Astros were introduced before a regular-season crowd for the first time Thursday night at Angel Stadium. To a man, they were booed. That included catcher Martin Maldonado, who was catching for the Angels while the Astros were cheating their way to a championship in 2017. (Let the record show that Maldonado did receive a smattering of applause.)

The loudest boos were saved for Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel, the three remaining participants in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal who batted Thursday. There was actually a fourth participant on the field, but Max Stassi wasn’t booed. He plays for the Angels now.

As the number of sign-stealing holdovers dwindle, the Astros’ story becomes less about the traveling hate parade that follows them, and more about karmic potential left unfulfilled. Much has changed in five years. One thing that hasn’t: the Astros are good enough to win – perhaps good enough to win a World Series – without stealing signs illegally.

There is no justice in Houston, just a solidly constructed baseball team year after year. Impervious to their inherited reputation, the Astros simply find new players to maintain their mini-dynasty – five consecutive American League Championship Series appearances, including three trips to the World Series.

This might be the year the Astros cede control of the AL West, but there are few reasons to believe it so far. Thursday, it was Framber Valdez, the burly Dominican left-hander, whose pitching upstaged a historic Opening Day start by Shohei Ohtani in the Astros’ 3-1 win.

Valdez, generating few reasons to boo him on merit, has emerged as a bona fide top-of-the-rotation starter for the best team in the division. He mostly pitches to contact, mostly throws three pitches, and rarely throws anything harder than 95 mph. Yet he took a one-hitter into the seventh inning against the Angels’ “A” lineup – Ohtani, Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon were playing together for only the 19th time.

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Health permitting, there will be many nights in 2022 when the most-heralded Angels do enough to outshine their opponents by themselves. Valdez would not allow it on Opening Day.

Just before exiting, Valdez survived a Rendon fly ball that landed foul by inches in left field, then induced a double-play groundout to hold the Astros’ lead at 1-0. He also benefited from an adventurous day in left field by Jo Adell, the Angels’ young phenom.

The Angels will get another chance to move the plot forward, but the next chapter of their rivalry with the Astros is already reading a lot like the last. They will begin the 2022 season a game behind Houston.

George Springer, Marwin Gonzalez and Carlos Correa all play elsewhere now. Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann retired years ago. Perhaps the announced crowd of 44,723 was not ready to divorce the the new stars – Valdez, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker – from the sins of their predecessors Thursday. That matters little in the end. The Astros are still good.