LOS ANGELES — The better ballclubs pull out of slumps before the Padres finally did so Sunday, pulling off a 5-2 road victory against the Dodgers that staved off a four-game sweep and halted an eight-game skid.

You wondered what took so long after seeing the Padres score often and enter the seventh inning with a 5-0 lead behind lefty JP Sears’ five scoreless innings and Manny Machado’s three-run home run.

Now it’s up to the Padres to make the most of not having to play teams as good as the Dodgers, who went  5-2 against them the past two weeks, and the Cubs, who swept them in Wrigley Field before the team came to L.A.

The Padres are fortunate that no team has run away in the race for the third wild-card spot, with the Cardinals ahead of them by four games plus the tiebreaker by virtue of winning the season series.

Presenting another opportunity is that two losing teams, the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays, will come to San Diego this week going into the All-Star break.

Star Manny Machado said it’s too early to believe the Padres have dug themselves a deep hole.

Regarding the Aug. 3 trade deadline, he said he hasn’t given it any thought.

“We’ve got to play baseball, win games,” he said.

“Everybody’s working their butts off,” he said. “As a group, I think we’re about to turn the corner.”

At least Machado hasn’t lost the team’s recent swoon to erode his sense of humor.

“It’s a beautiful game, and we’re all stupid to be playing it,” he said in discussing the past few weeks.

“We’re all stupid to be playing it,” he said again. “Because it’s a struggle – you fail seven times of 10 times, and you’re still a Hall-of-Famer. You’re struggling. You’re grinding.”

The lefty Sears showed a good changeup and did a fine imitation of 1970s Padres finesse lefty Fred Norman in taming three former league MVPs in L.A.’s lineup, allowing only one hit — a soft single — in five innings.

Make it two Grade-A outings in three tries for Sears since his promotion from the Pacific Coast League.

Machado’s ears may have been ringing the past two nights due to Dodgers fans booing him as vociferously as they would the salary-cap advocates MLB employs in labor talks.

The jeers grew louder Friday and Saturday as Machado piled up four strikeouts amid two hitless nights.

Machado answered Sunday as he had in the series opener Thursday, homering with Fernando Tatis Jr. — and this time, Luis Campusano — aboard.

He said the shadows relating to a 4:20 p.m. first pitch made it very difficult to see the ball, but he guessed right in driving a pitch over the center-field wall.

Now a veteran-laden, high-payroll Padres team will try to win often enough to prevent A.J. Preller from conducting some sort of a sell-off.

Preller will also take into account the state of the club’s farm system, which may not offer a lot of help in trade talks.

Setting aside the merits of Padres scouting and player development, the price of big-league successes have been felt in the farm system.

The Padres have won too many games each of the past six seasons to land a top-end draft slot, picking in the 20s. Preller has dealt dozens of minor leaguers for big leaguers, moves that often contributed to and stemmed from the run of annual playoff contention.

Preller and his staff welcome farm-replenishment challenges linked to big-league success.

Where the Padres may be unique is MLB’s collective bargaining agreement unfairly weakening the club’s farm-building and trade-making wherewithal.

MLB’s amateur draft this week will make it four straight years in which the small-market Padres had no competitive balance draft picks.

The exemption owes to the Padres becoming a payer into MLB’s revenue-sharing pool by virtue of evolving into a top-5 fixture in home attendance.

That’ll teach the Padres for increasing baseball’s appeal to fans and ballpark sponsors.

In each of the same four years, several Padres rivals in the annual wild-card race have continued to receive these picks, which can be traded. Remarkably, the recipients of these gift picks, which come after either the first or third round, include National League franchises in bigger media markets than San Diego.

See the Colorado Rockies, the Miami Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

So on two fronts, it’s looking steep for the Padres on two fronts. Earn the last wild card this year, and build a more promising youth movement.