LOS ANGELES — It’s the conundrum that’s flummoxed pitchers ever since Shohei Ohtani crossed the Pacific: How do you short-circuit baseball’s near-perfect hitting machine? How do you best the player who has the talent, swagger and power to routinely send balls sailing toward the Hollywood Hills?

And there is no formula — not really. Sure, Ohtani chases some, particularly on pitches low and away, and he looks almost average against a really good changeup, like the one Tylor Megill threw him for a swinging third strike in the fifth inning of the Mets’ Tuesday night loss at Chavez Ravine.

But the imperfect answer seems to lie in that imperfect question. Because, of course, Ohtani isn’t a machine.

“He’s just another hitter,” David Peterson said late last month after striking out Ohtani three times in one game.

“Hitters are good, but they fail a lot because that’s the nature of the game,” Ryne Stanek said before the Mets took on the Dodgers in the third of the four-game set Wednesday at Dodger Stadium. “If you’re obsessing over any one hitter and putting them on a pedestal, then you’re shrinking yourself.”

Added Paul Blackburn, with a small smile, “I enjoy facing him . . . It’s fun.”

Ohtani came into Wednesday slashing .288/.386/.653 with 39 RBIs, and was tied with the Mariners’ Cal Raleigh with an MLB-leading 23 home runs. He’s the odds-on favorite to win MVP, which would be his fourth in eight seasons. And though he will certainly get his knocks against the Mets, this pitching staff has mostly been very good at containing the damage thus far this year — at least going into Wednesday’s game. (“We still have two games left,” manager Carlos Mendoza wisely cautioned about the Mets’ early success.)

In the five games the two teams have played, Ohtani is hitting .150, with two homers, three RBIs, three walks and nine strikeouts. Mets hurlers have done it in all sorts of ways, though one through line is that they’ve mostly thrown him pitches outside of the strike zone — of the 93 pitches Ohtani has seen over the first five games, only 35 have been in the zone.

But that’s not because his pitchers are being too cute, Mendoza said. That doesn’t work against a Dodgers lineup known for its discipline and its propensity to hammer mistakes. And lest anyone forget, it’s not just Ohtani they have to worry about. It’s Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy and . . . well, you get the idea.

“It’s [about] sticking to your strength because if you start nibbling against a lineup like this, they’re going to make you pay,” Mendoza said Wednesday.

“It’s not just Ohtani, it’s not Mookie, not Freddie, it’s what’s behind them, too . . . That’s what makes that team a really good team because they’re deep and they can hurt you in a lot of different ways, and not only with guys that can hit the ball out of the ballpark, but the batting average, their ability to control the strike zone, so we’ve got to stick to our strength.”

And often, it really is as simple as that: Here’s my best, now go ahead and hit it.

But that’s not just a strategy, it’s a mentality. It’s the type of gamesmanship that makes a guy like Blackburn — a pitcher who faced Ohtani in four games when they both played in the AL West, and saw Ohtani go 4-for-9 with a homer and double — call the matchup “fun.” Ohtani was 0-for-3 against him Monday with two strikeouts.

“It’s execution,” Stanek said. “Guys in the big leagues are really good and you may execute well and it may backfire, but I think the only goal is to execute at the highest clip you can and then the dice can roll.”

His Ohtani philosophy is the same that it is for every hitter. And again, that’s not just a strategy, but a mentality: When a player is larger than life, part of the chess match is mental. The first step is to shrink him back to human size, at least in your head. Then hope for the best.

“Just attack,” Stanek said. “I try not to overthink a scenario and try to be perfect, because being perfect is really hard.”

Perfect is, in fact, impossible. Even for Ohtani. And remembering that seems to be the biggest advantage you can have.

The Mets got good news on Mark Vientos after an MRI showed the third baseman only sustained a low-grade hamstring strain after hurting himself trying to run out a grounder Monday. He’ll get treatment for the next 10 to 14 days until he’s symptom-free and, if all goes well, he’ll be able to resume baseball activities then, Mendoza said . . . Sean Manaea (oblique) is scheduled to begin his rehab assignment with Single-A Brooklyn Friday. He’s expected to throw two innings of about 35 pitches.