KANSAS CITY — Luke Hochevar experienced a pitching epiphany last Friday night ... or at least he hopes that’s what it was.

“I guess you would say the light came on,” the Royals rookie starter said.

But a seven-inning, one-run performance against the Seattle Mariners — baseball’s worst team — won’t justify the start of a Hall of Fame career for Hochevar. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2006 draft, Hochevar’s first half-season in the big leagues was marked with ups and downs.

Hochevar entered the All-Star break with what he called the best performance of his career, which now includes 20 appearances and 17 starts. He credited an unspecified adjustment for the strong performance and couldn’t have been happier with the result.

“That’s what this game’s about,” Hochevar said. “Especially as a young player is learning and making adjustments. Outcomes are outcomes, but as long as you’re making adjustments, getting better and competing as hard as you can, that’s all you can ask for.”

Drafted ahead of current All-Stars Evan Longoria of Tampa Bay and Tim Lincecum of San Francisco, Hochevar’s more in the category of fellow 2006 first-round pitching selections Max Scherzer, Andrew Miller and Brendan Morrow — all of whom still are finding their places in the majors.

Hochevar was a September call-up in 2007 but didn’t make the Royals’ Opening Day roster this season. After his call-up from Triple-A Omaha on April 20, Hochevar’s first start — a loss in 4 2/3 innings against Oakland — left him with a lot of work to do.

He eventually lowered his ERA to a season-best 3.94 after blanking the Tigers for six innings in mid-May.

“He obviously has good stuff. We’ve seen it,” Royals catcher John Buck said.

But after the win against Detroit moved his record to 3-2, Hochever took a loss in five of his next seven starts, and his ERA ballooned to 5.40 after a July 6 loss at Tampa Bay.

His final start of the first half pitted him against the Mariners.

The results were spectacular, or at least as spectacular as Hochevar’s been with the Royals.

Hochevar needed just 92 pitches to get through seven innings, striking out four and walking none. He scattered five hits with only Adrian Beltre’s lead-off double in the top of the seventh bothering him.

But two straight groundouts — Miguel Cairo’s plated Beltre — and a flyout took away the potential of big inning.

“Sometimes he allows the game to speed up a little bit too much on him,” Royals manager Trey Hillman said. “Then it dominoes into a negative crooked-number inning up there. We’ll take the single digit every now and then, but try to stay away from the multiple-run innings.”

Hillman and Buck said before the game Hochevar’s at his best when stays aggressive in the strike zone and pitches with confidence. That’s what he did against Seattle.

Hochevar has now walked zero batters in three of his 16 starts — all wins for the Royals.

“When he’s pitched well, he’s aggressive with the strike zone, trusts his stuff, doesn’t try to overthrow,” Buck said. “You see that in a lot of young pitchers. They try to get nasty when they need to learn how to trust their stuff, trust what got ’em here.”

Hochevar (6-7, 5.10 ERA) believes the momentum will carry into the second half. He’s been named the No. 4 starter in the Royals adjusted rotation for the second half, Hillman announced Sunday.

It’s a good start for Hochevar, but clearly his adjustments need to keep coming to fully justify his draft position. He’s young, just two years removed from pitching in St. Joseph’s Phil Welch Stadium in an American Association game between his Fort Worth Cats and the defunct St. Joe Blacksnakes.

But Hochevar has the talent to keep his teammates believing.

“I think he’s a legitimate 4, 5 starter on any team right now,” Buck said, “and that’s with him being very youthful, very raw and not fully tapped into what he’s capable of. I think the more he grows and learns himself and learns the league, he’s going to get progressively better.”

Assistant sports editor Ross Martin can be reached at rossmartin@npgco.com