ANAHEIM -- There was plenty of talk from White Sox starter Michael Kopech about his effort on the mound Wednesday night after the Angels’ 4-1 victory at Angel Stadium, which gave Los Angeles the series win.

Kopech discussed Shohei Ohtani, the once-in-a-lifetime talent who improved to 7-4 by striking out 11 over 5 2/3 scoreless innings. But it was questions about the state of the White Sox drawing a truly direct response from the always well-spoken right-hander.

The White Sox dropped back to four under .500 at 35-39, and sit six games behind the Twins and four behind the Guardians in the American League Central. Asking about a team with World Series aspirations entering the season and still struggling as July approaches becomes a natural progression.

But after a short pause to consider his initial response, Kopech put things in perspective.

“We keep getting asked this question. We keep getting asked about how we feel about it,” Kopech said. “Look, nobody wants to lose and the guys that are on the field every night, I promise they want to win more than anybody else that’s thinking about the team.

“So, yeah, we are not happy that we are not winning. But nobody is panicking. We know we are a good team and we can turn it around tomorrow if things go well. It’s frustrating, yeah, but I think we know what we are capable of.”

Ohtani was as dazzling as ever on the mound, making great usage of his splitter, but the White Sox made him work. He struck out the side in the first inning, but needed 25 pitches to strand Tim Anderson on third and José Abreu on second. Abreu finished 4-for-4, all singles, to raise his average to .284.

Luis Robert and Abreu singled to open the fourth, but Ohtani pitched out of trouble via Gavin Sheets’ lineout to center and strikeouts of AJ Pollock and Josh Harrison.

“Yeah, I thought we worked the at-bats,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “It’s really hard the first couple of innings to see for both teams. And then we did a better job of making the at-bats go longer. But he’s got weapons. He’s for real.”

“He did a great job on the mound tonight,” said Kopech of Ohtani. “Kind of answered all of his own problems -- or his team’s own problems -- that they may have struggled with offensively, and they had a couple of big hits and came through for him. It’s quite a matchup like that, but I would like to see my best stuff on a day like that.”

Kopech (2-5) allowed two runs in the first inning, with one of them being unearned when he couldn’t handle a return throw from Anderson on a potential double-play grounder hit by Jared Walsh. He settled in nicely to this matchup of aces high, before being touched up for Luis Rengifo’s two-run homer in the sixth.

For the night, Kopech struck out six and walked two over 99 pitches. He termed the effort “kind of a grind.”

“I started off making a few mistakes that got taken advantage of, and then towards the end where I really needed to bear down and make some tough pitches, didn’t make those pitches and I got taken advantage of,” Kopech said. “I gotta do a better job of putting us in control and being in the driver’s seat a little bit. I’ve been putting the team in a position where we have to fight all night long, and I can’t continue to do that.”

“He was outstanding,” said La Russa of Kopech. “ We just didn’t put the ball in play enough. … Not enough contact. Tough to call him a losing pitcher, but that’s the way it goes.”

Thursday’s off-day is followed by what should be a challenging three-game set in San Francisco against a good Giants team. After that, a 19-game stretch against AL Central teams beginning Monday, including eight against the Guardians and seven against the Twins. But don’t tell Kopech about urgency, as it exists every day.

“We haven’t even reached All-Star break yet so I don’t think anyone has a real worried state or sense of urgency,” Kopech said. “The urgency is always there as far as being the first ones to score, to have the first 1-2-3 inning. We want to set the tone of the game, that’s where the urgency is.

“It doesn’t change from day to day. We know the process and know it’s going to catch back up to us.”