ARLINGTON -- Martín Pérez looked like he was in for a long day from the very first pitch on Sunday afternoon.

Struggling with his command and nibbling on the edges of the zone, the Rangers’ lefty walked Mookie Betts, surrendered a single to Freddie Freeman and eventually allowed a grand slam to Max Muncy that put the Rangers in an early hole against one of the National League’s best teams.

But then something clicked. After the Muncy at-bat, Pérez buckled down for the remainder of his outing, allowing just three hits and no runs over his last five innings of work. All six of his strikeouts came after the first, as he and a trio of relievers propelled Texas to an 8-4 win over the Dodgers to avoid a sweep at Globe Life Field.

“We can score runs at any moment,” Pérez said. “I was just trying to not get mad or frustrated at that moment with the grand slam. I was thinking, ‘This is a new game. Keep throwing the ball, just try to get people out, because we’re going to score runs.’”

Pérez said he didn’t make many adjustments between the first and second innings, but rather started using the bottom of the zone more and stopped forcing the pitches on the edges.

While Pérez and the Rangers would both rather not be in a multi-run hole at all, it’s telling that he was able to lock down and keep the game where it was.

“Obviously, we saw what happened in the first inning,” said catcher Jonah Heim. “He just fell behind some guys and we made some adjustments in between innings just to fill up the zone and trust his stuff. When he did that, it was smooth sailing.

“When he's on his game, he just lets whatever happened in the past go in the past and he competes. That's what we saw today. After the first inning, he was dialed in. We were mixing his pitches and his command was excellent. When he's pinpointing a sinker in, it's going to be a good day for him.”

Heim said he felt like the switch flipped for Pérez in the second, when he responded to the offense tagging L.A. starter Emmet Sheehan for two runs by shutting down the Dodgers with a 1-2-3 inning. That set the table for the Rangers’ offense to take the lead in the bottom half of the frame.

Manager Bruce Bochy said it was an inning later that he knew Pérez was locked in, when he had runners on second and third with no outs and got out of the jam with a flyout, strikeout and groundout.

“It was not an auspicious start, as you saw,” Bochy said. “For him to regroup and bounce back like that and shut them out the next five innings, it says a lot about who he is. He didn’t let it phase him. We talked about putting some tough things that happened behind you, and he did that. He went out there and just gave us a great effort. Because of him, we won that ballgame.”

Pérez also continued his streak of tremendous run support as the Rangers’ offense scored eight unanswered runs following the first-inning grand slam. Including Sunday, Pérez is getting 8.06 runs of support per game, the second best in the Majors (min. 50 IP) behind only San Francisco’s Alex Wood (8.43). He now has 92 total runs of support, tied with Atlanta’s Charlie Morton for the most of any pitcher.

“Those things are hard to figure out, but for some reason, we do score when he's out there,” Bochy said. “That's a good thing when a pitcher has karma, or whatever you want to call it.”

“I think we're trying to give every single one of our pitchers some run support,” Heim added jokingly. “Obviously, some guys just get the luck of the draw, I guess. It also just shows the depth of our offense. If we put together good at-bats and we show up each and every day, then we're gonna get these pitchers some runs to work with.”