LOS ANGELES – Shohei Ohtani is human after all.

A night after the Japanese superstar set an otherworldly record by reaching base nine times in an 18-inning Los Angeles Dodgers win, he was brought back to earth on the mound and at the plate Tuesday at Dodger Stadium in Game 4 of the World Series.

The Toronto Blue Jays beat him, 6-2, tying the best-of-seven series at two games apiece with Game 5 back here on Wednesday. The Jays’ victory insured the series will return to Toronto for Game 6 Friday and, if necessary, Game 7 on Saturday.

“He is mortal,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about Ohtani. “I know he doesn’t see it as pressure, but the extraordinary is what he expects from himself every day. It’s part of expecting to see great things from great players. I expect to see great things happen from him. And perhaps unfairly.” 

Ohtani allowed a two-run homer to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the third inning and was charged with four runs in all when he was lifted after allowing a pair of singles to open up the seventh. Both runners scored as the Dodgers bullpen faltered and the Blue Jays opened up the lead with four runs. Ohtani walked one and struck out six.

At the plate he was 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts.

While his performance Monday was the stuff of legend in a game the Dodgers won, 6-5, on Freddie Freeman’s 18th-inning walk-off homer, his contribution Tuesday didn’t remotely match it.

Monday at the plate, he hit two homers, two doubles and walked the last five times he came to the plate, four of them intentionally.

There was a real question how the impact of him being on base nine times and the accompanying leg cramps that plagued him late in extra innings would affect his stamina less than 24 hours later.

Ohtani said postgame through his interpreter and translated into English that he felt fine.

“I went to sleep at 2 a.m. I felt good about getting quality sleep,” he said.

But Ohtani admitted his mechanics were off as he warmed up before the game in the bullpen.

“Things didn’t seem right,” Ohtani said. “That’s happened a few times during the course of the season.”

Ohtani struggled through the first inning, throwing 19 pitches and allowing a pair of base runners with two out on a walk and infield single. He worked out of the jam when Alejandro Kirk popped out to Freeman at first base.

In the third, with the Dodgers leading, 1-0, and one out Nathan Lukes lined a single to right. Facing Guerrero, Ohtani let an 85-mph sweeper drift over the middle of the plate, and Guerrero deposited it into the left pavilion, giving the Jays a 2-1 lead they never relinquished.

“That was a game changer,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.

Ohtani was critical of himself for following up a 97-mph hour fastball that Guerrero fouled off with the pitch Guerrero hit for his seventh homer of these playoffs.

“Obviously, looking back in hindsight, it was just a regrettable pitch, something I wish that I could have taken back,” Ohtani said. “It was just a bad spot, that location.”

Ohtani worked well protecting that one-run deficit through the sixth inning, when he retired the side in order and finished with 90 pitches. But instead of going to the bullpen right there, Ohtani told pitching coach Mark Pryor he had plenty left in the tank.

“Mark asked him in the sixth inning how much more he had. He said he had three more innings,” Roberts said. “He’s very self-aware of his body.”

Just as in his 10-strikeout, two-hit performance when he also hit three homers against Milwaukee to end the National League Championship Series, Ohtani allowed the first two batters in the seventh to reach base.

On both occasions Roberts went to the bullpen. This time it was too late.

And Ohtani couldn’t help his cause at the plate, either. Before Tuesday’s game, Schneider was asked if he intended to walk Ohtani intentionally in the first inning, as had happened four times the previous night.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said.

Jays starter Shane Bieber worked carefully to Ohtani and walked him anyway for the sixth time in a row. That extended his streak to 10 consecutive times on base in the World Series, and at that point, he’d been on base 14 times in a row during the last three playoff games at Dodger Stadium.

That streak ended in the third inning when Bieber struck out Ohtani swinging, then got him again looking in the sixth.

“We’re facing the best of the best, so it’s not that easy,” Ohtani said. “But at the same time, we could do at least the bare minimum to be able to put up some runs.”

As it turns out, the Blue Jays are here for a reason. And Ohtani can’t be Major League Baseball’s answer to Superman. Not every night.