Kansas City, Mo. ? Luke Hochevar called it the best outing of his young career. He had to be at his best to beat Felix Hernandez.

Hochevar scattered five hits over seven innings and David DeJesus doubled in two runs, helping the Kansas City Royals defeat the Seattle Mariners, 3-1, on Friday night.

“You could say the light came on with my approach and my pitch-ability tonight,” Hochevar said.

He limited the Mariners to four singles before Adrian Beltre opened the seventh with a double. Beltre went to third on Jeremy Reed’s ground out and scored on Miguel Cario’s ground out to shortstop Mike Aviles for the only Seattle run.

Hochevar (6-7) struck out four and walked none – quite an improvement over his recent outings. Hochevar had allowed 15 hits and 13 earned runs in 10 innings in losing his previous two starts.

“After a couple of rough outings, the way you get your confidence back, the way you get back on the saddle is by trusting your talent,” Hochevar said. “I trusted my stuff. I was aggressive in the strike zone.

“I think my main adjustment was pitching to both sides of the plate and moving the ball around, not staying in one location, like I did my previous start.

“The thing I’m more pleased with is the adjustment I made and what I learned from the adjustment I made. It proves to be priceless in my process of getting better every day.”

Ramon Ramirez worked a scoreless eighth inning, and Joakim Soria pitched a flawless ninth to log his 25th save in 27 opportunities. Soria tied a Royals’ record for saves before the All-Star break; Jeff Montgomery saved 25 games before the 1993 All-Star game.