SEATTLE -- Joe Blanton gave up baseball after the 2013 season.

The 2015 Kansas City Royals are certainly glad he decided to come back.

Blanton won his second consecutive start, holding the Seattle Mariners to two hits over six-plus innings in the Royals' 4-1 victory Monday.

In his two starts this season, Blanton has allowed just two runs over 11 innings, striking out 11 without issuing a walk. It's been one of the most impressive stretches of the 34-year-old journeyman's career and has validated his decision to come out of retirement to try to earn a roster spot for the Royals in the spring.

"Being able to get back (into baseball) was pretty much the pinnacle," said Blanton, whose only action during the 2014 season came during a brief stint in Oakland's minor-league system. "Now I'm just riding it out, enjoying it."

Before his two-start winning streak, Blanton went 19 outings in a row without a win.

Blanton (2-0) gave up a two-out home run to Seattle second baseman Robinson Cano in the first inning Monday before retiring 16 consecutive batters through the sixth. After Mariners center fielder Austin Jackson led off the seventh with a double, Blanton's 80-pitch night ended.

The right-hander allowed one run and no walks while striking out seven.

"Anytime you can go six innings and not pitch out of the stretch," manager Ned Yost said, "odds are you had a pretty good game."

Blanton didn't have an argument with being taken out one batter into the seventh, despite his impressive start and low pitch count.

"That's a hard one to argue with this bullpen," he said.

The Royals (40-27) pounded out 10 hits, nine of which came against Seattle starter Felix Hernandez.

Kansas City shortstop Alcides Escobar went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a run. Third baseman Mike Moustakas, right fielder Alex Rios and second baseman Omar Infante also drove in runs for the Royals.

Hernandez (10-4) allowed more than three earned runs for only the fourth time this season. He gave up four runs while striking out five and walking one over 6 2/3 innings.

"They just pestered him -- I think they hit one ball hard -- all night," Seattle manager Lloyd McClendon said. "That's baseball."

The Mariners (32-39) may have dodged a bullet after a strange injury caused star right fielder Nelson Cruz to come out of the game in the seventh inning. McClendon said Cruz's pelvic bone had to be popped back into place.

"What they're telling me is it's going to be very short-term," McClendon said afterward.

Blanton, 34, sat out most of 2014 and began this season at Triple-A Omaha before being called up to serve as a long reliever in the Kansas City bullpen. Injuries to Jason Vargas and Yordano Ventura forced the Royals to give Blanton a start last week, and he allowed only one run over five innings to earn his first victory since June 29, 2013. He was even better Monday night, when he dominated Seattle for six innings before relievers Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland finished off the win.

Holland pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his 14th save of the season.

Blanton's season ERA dropped to 1.73 after the win.

"I definitely appreciate (the success) more," he said of being out of the game for most of 2014. "When I quit, I thought that was it."

Cano hit his first home run of June, a first-inning solo shot that gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead, but the Royals were quick to respond. Back-to-back RBI singles from Rios and Infante in the top of the second put Kansas City ahead 2-1.

Moustakas added an RBI double off the wall in the third inning for a 3-1 lead. Escobar's third hit of the night, an RBI single in the seventh, accounted for Kansas City's fourth run.

Seattle put on a minor threat in the seventh, which saw center fielder Austin Jackson lead off with a double and move to third base on a wild pitch during Cano's at-bat that followed. But Cano struck out, then outfielder Dustin Ackley had to come on to pinch-hit for Cruz and also struck out. A flyout by third baseman Kyle Seager ended the Mariners' first scoring threat since the first inning.

"I thought we'd have better at-bats tonight," McClendon said. "I thought we'd have some opportunities to score runs; we just couldn't do it."

NOTES: Royals DH Kendrys Morales spent parts of the past two seasons with the Mariners. Morales and Seattle's Nelson Cruz are the American League's top two DH vote-getters for the All-Star Game. ... Kansas City's Eric Hosmer is no longer leading AL first basemen in All-Star balloting. Detroit's Miguel Cabrera passed him this week and now leads by 1.38 million votes. Seven other Kansas City position players lead their positions. ... RHP Joe Blanton, the 34-year-old Royals starter, has more than twice as many starts (250) as the three Houston Astros starters Seattle faced last weekend. (LHP Dallas Keuchel and rookie RHPs Lance McCullers and Vincent Velasquez have 92). ... Seattle RHP Felix Hernandez was facing the Royals for the first time since 2013.