HOUSTON -- Pablo López might have been one to wear more button-down shirts had he chosen his parents’ career path and followed in their footsteps to become a doctor, but as a Major League Baseball player, he’s typically opted for a nice T-shirt when coming to the ballpark.

Until Friday -- because something needed to change.

López packed his bags himself and made sure to include seven button-down shirts to wear to the ballpark to mix up his routine, because he wanted to embody the ideal of his two starts on this road trip being “all business,” as he put it. He also shaved half of his facial hair to leave only a mustache and goatee, though the business formality of that look is perhaps more in question.

“He looked like one of those assassins from ‘Breaking Bad,’” catcher Ryan Jeffers said.

López needed to get down to business to reverse course on a deeply difficult May -- and All-Business Pablo delivered seven strong innings of one-run ball and only seemed to get stronger as the outing progressed, snapping out of his three-start funk to guide the Twins to a 6-1 victory in Friday’s series opener against the Astros, their eighth win in their last 10 games.

“A lot of people said he looked a lot meaner getting ready for the outing today, mentality-wise,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I don't know if he pitched meaner, but he pitched great.”

The Twins had expressed relative calm in pointing to López’s solid underlying metrics as reason to believe he’d eventually snap out of the downswing that saw him allow 16 runs on 25 hits in 16 innings across his last three starts to raise his season ERA to 5.25. But clearly, López felt some urgency within himself to shake up his look and routine to find better results.

But he also didn’t want to overdo things, in part because he understood it was simply a three-start blip, including 13 runs in his last two outings, while he was still doing many things right.

“I was very resilient, and I had to tell myself to just be strong, do not give in to the temptation of throwing your routine away because you're looking for a change,” López said. “And just not trying to do too much on the mound.”

So it seemed the facial hair thing was a pretty good compromise.

“[I’m] not superstitious, just a little stitious,” López said. “That's what people say.”

Friday’s outing wasn’t ace-level dominance from start to finish, but that’s perhaps what made López’s get-right start more encouraging: He pitched through some messy innings at the start of the game, then settled in to retire the final nine batters he faced in the fifth to seventh innings.

“In the previous starts, it felt like when people got on base, things snowballed and it was hard to limit damage and prevent runs, and I think today was just staying present, staying in the moment, one pitch at a time,” López said.

He held the Astros to 1-for-10 with runners on base and 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position, and aside from a solo homer, he only scattered five singles in the first five innings.

And though López’s season-long struggles with his sweeper reared up again when he allowed a solo homer to Alex Bregman off the left-field foul pole in the fourth inning, he seemed to find some of his missing feel for his most important pitch as the outing progressed -- which, in the bigger picture, has seemingly been a significant missing piece, as he has allowed hitters to slug .560 against it this season, as compared to .265 last year.

But the changeup, curveball and especially the fastball played up against an Astros lineup not known for striking out too much, and with help from homers by Trevor Larnach and Carlos Santana and an RBI double from Carlos Correa, López found his first winning effort since May 9.

“There were some good embraces, some good hugs after he came out,” Jeffers said. “It was a breath of fresh air.”

López gave plenty of kudos to some strong defense behind him and to the offense that kept the pressure on Astros starter Ronel Blanco -- but he also gave credit to his trusty razor and just mixing things up, because why not?

“Sometimes we think it has to be something mechanics, something pitching,” López said. “What if it was something different? I had to take a chance.”