ANAHEIM >> By nearly becoming involved in major-league history Thursday night, the A’s reached a level of infamy that baseball fans in the East Bay last experienced more than four decades ago.

Shohei Ohtani, who needed four more outs for his first no-hitter, helped give the A’s their 100th loss of the season, as the Los Angeles Angels earned a 4-2 victory in front of 31,293 at Angel Stadium.

Not since 1979, when the club went 54-108, have the A’s reached triple figures in losses. That had been the only time the A’s exceeded 100 losses since they moved to Oakland in 1968.

“It doesn’t feel good,” catcher Stephen Vogt said. “It’s the first time I’ve experienced it, and hopefully the last. None of us like it.”

A’s manager Mark Kotsay experienced a worse season in 1998 as a rookie outfielder with the then-Florida Marlins.

“I did have a season to start my career when we were 54-108,” Kotsay said before the game.

That experience provided lessons Kotsay tries to impart to the young A’s.

“When you’re a major-league baseball player, you come not only to play the game, but to prove to yourself, to your teammates and to everyone that’s watching that you belong here, that you can have an impact here,” he said. “The last thing that you want to portray is that you’re defeated. I don’t feel like our ballclub has done that one bit.”

The A’s provided evidence in the top of the ninth inning by scoring twice and bringing the tying run to the plate against Angels relievers Aaron Loup and Ryan Tepera.

The visitors loaded the bases when Nick Allen hit a double down the right-field line, pinch-hitter Jonah Bride walked and Sean Murphy was hit by a pitch. Seth Brown’s groundout scored Allen and a wild pitch brought Bride home. However, Vogt hit a long flyout as a pinch-hitter to end the game.

“We try not to focus on the amount of losses,” Vogt said. “Not unlike tonight, we’ve had a lot of our games where we get the tying or winning run to the plate and make it a close game.”

Before that rally, Ohtani stifled a lineup that entered the game ranked last in the major leagues in batting average (.217), hits (1,106), on-base percentage (.282) and OPS (.630), and next-to-last in runs (544), RBI (514) and slugging percentage (.348).

After walking Tony Kemp to start the game, the two-way star retired the next 22 batters, facing the minimum before conceding back-to-back singles to Conner Capel and Dermis Garcia with two out in the top of the eighth. Ohtani conceded just the two hits and the walk while amassing 10 strikeouts in eight innings.

Now the A’s head to Seattle for a three-game series that started Friday night and then end the season at home with three more games against the Angels. Though the A’s could finish with as many as 106 losses, Kotsay believes his players are concentrating on creating a foundation for a more successful future.

“If you were in our weight room today, at 3 o’clock, you’d have seen about 10 to 12 guys working out and getting prepared for the night,” Kotsay said. “That says more than any speech or anything that can be talked about.

“They’ve got an opportunity in front of them that not everyone in this world or even throughout the minor leagues is presented with. They know that. From my perspective, they’ve given me every bit of what I’ve asked them, and that’s just to play the game right and respect themselves.”