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SEATTLE -- After weeks of mostly poor performances, Marco Estrada once again flirted with a no-hitter for Toronto.And just when the Blue Jays needed that quality of a performance.Estrada took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Edwin Encarnacion hit his 41st home run and the Blue Jays beat the Seattle Mariners 3-2 on Monday night in the opener of a critical three-game series.Estrada (9-9) had allowed only two walks before Robinson Cano led off the seventh with a line drive up the middle on a 2-1 pitch. Cano and Nelson Cruz walked in the fourth -- an inning that ended on Kevin Pillars sliding catch to save a run -- but Estrada otherwise kept the Mariners off the bases before Canos single.Estradas outing was exactly what the slumping Blue Jays needed. They arrived in Seattle having dropped two straight and four of six, and their wild-card lead dwindled in the process. Estrada was partly to blame for the September swoon. In his previous six starts, he was 1-4 with a 7.53 ERA. In September alone, Estrada had allowed 12 earned runs in 12 2/3 innings.But he was brilliant against the Mariners, keeping the thousands of Blue Jays fans that made the trip south from British Columbia cheering all night as Toronto pulled even with Baltimore for the first wild-card spot. Both teams are 2 1/2 games clear of Detroit and three ahead of Seattle and Houston.Im not really sure whats been going on, as the game gets going I start to struggle a little bit, Estrada said. We looked at video and there have been little things here and there that we caught. We changed it up and felt pretty good today.Estrada was pulled after walking Leonys Martin leading off the eighth inning, leaving to a standing ovation from the huge Blue Jays contingent. He struck out eight and walked three before being replaced by Jason Grilli.The final six outs were trying for the Blue Jays. Pinch-hitter Ben Gamel walked to put two runners on with no outs in the eighth, and Seth Smith walked on a nine-pitch at-bat with two outs to load the bases for Cano.Closer Roberto Osuna entered and got Cano to line out to the warning track in right field where Ezequiel Carrera was playing. Martin hit a two-out, two-run homer in the ninth off Osuna, but Gamel struck out looking to cap Osunas 34th save.We know whats ahead of us, and we arent going to back away from it, Seattle manager Scott Servais said. I thought our guys gave a really good effort tonight, just wasnt enough.Encarnacions two-run homer off starter Taijuan Walker (6-11) came with two outs in the third on a 0-1 pitch that was left up in the strike zone. Pillar added a two-out RBI single in the fourth inning after Troy Tulowitzki led off with a double.NEAR MISSESEstrada has never completed a no-hitter, but hes been close. He lost a no-hit bid in the eighth inning against Boston on June 5, and also pitched hitless ball into the eighth inning in consecutive starts in June 2015.Its not something that I was focused on. Obviously if it would have happened it would have been incredible but it didnt. Cano hit a pretty good pitch, Estrada said.DONALDSON TOSSEDTorontos Josh Donaldson was ejected in the seventh inning arguing with plate umpire Chris Conroy after being called out on strikes. Donaldson was already upset about a check-swing Conroy called a strike earlier in the at-bat and flipped at being called out on a fastball on the outside corner. Donaldson immediately got in Conroys face and was quickly tossed.UP NEXTBlue Jays: LHP J.A. Happ (19-4) goes for his 20th win. Happ would join Bostons Rick Porcello as the only two pitchers in baseball with 20 wins this season. Happ has won 13 of his last 14 decisions.Mariners: RHP Hisashi Iwakuma (16-11) looks for his third straight victory. Iwakuma allowed just one run in 6 1/3 innings in his last start against the Angels. China Shoes 2020 . -- Ryan Getzlaf grabbed the three pucks wrapped in tape and held them up to his chest in the Anaheim Ducks dressing room for a celebration nine seasons in the making. Cheap Shoes Free Shipping .com) - The Calgary Flames aim to bounce back from their first regulation home loss of the campaign on Friday night when they host a Detroit Red Wings club that they swept in three meetings a season ago. https://www.wholesaleshoesusa.com/ . -- Patrick Reed got an early start in golf. Discount Shoes For Sale . Rob Manfred, baseballs chief operating officer, testified last week during the grievance filed by the players union to overturn Rodriguezs 211-game suspension. A person familiar with the hearing, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Saturday that Manfred testified the sport wasnt concerned whether Bosch distributed performance-enhancing drugs to minors because MLBs interest was his relationship with players under investigation. Cheap Shoes From China . -- Quarterback Will Finch threw for 252 yards and three touchdowns, and Yannick Harou rushed in two scores as the No. CHICAGO -- Thousands in attendance at the Chicago Theatre cheered as Cloud9, the only North American team to make it to the quarterfinals of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship, walked onstage Thursday night to compete for a spot in the semifinals at New Yorks Madison Square Garden next week. But as the crowd erupted for even the slightest Cloud9 advantage, their campaign was on the brink of coming to an end. The crowd went silent as Cloud9 fell convincingly to Samsung Galaxy in three straight games.Following the loss, Cloud9 waved good-bye to fans and headed out of the arena as a somber mood loomed over the room. North American fans may have been sad, but support Andy Smoothie Ta says his team took the loss well, despite the crushing games.Samsung is a really good team, so were not taking it that badly, but we definitely played really bad as a team; our teamwork just wasnt up to par, Smoothie says. Korean teams punish that a lot more than other teams do.Smoothie says after qualifying for the quarterfinals on Sunday in San Francisco, the team had very little time to practice.I think I gave it our best shot to fix our problems, he says. Our practice was really efficient these past two days, but we only had two days of practice or actually even prepare for these games; we didnt have a lot of time.Cloud9, for their part, looked lost against Samsung Galaxy in their games Thursday night. Despite having a decent early game, the team got obliterated in the late game, with Samsung Galaxy slowly bleeding them out in the second two matchups. Its something that Smoothie said he wishes he and his team couldve addressed beforehand.We tried to fix as much as we could. We kind of knew our problems, he says. We just fixed the outer layer and never really got to the deep stuff. I dont think we couldve fixed much more than that.Coming to Chicago, Cloud9 was North Americas last hope, as their peers, Counter Logic Gaming and Team SoloMid were eliminated during the group stage. For many, this would put pressure on their team, but Smoothie says it felt good coming into the late half of the week. His only regret is his team should have practiced harder during Worlds in order to make a deeper run.Being NAs last hope, it feels pretty good at first, he says. When Worlds started, I think we just didnt take practice as serious as we shouldve; we played a lot of other games [that werent League]. Im not saying other games affected us too much, cause we played them outside of scrimmages and during queue times and stuff. Its not that bad. But I think we couldve been more focused and just commit everything to Worlds. To some extent, we did that, but I personally think we could do more and just get as good as we could while I was there.Prior to joining Cloud9 and making it to Worlds, Smoothie started his 2016 with a rough patch on Team Liquid. Formerly of Team Dragon Knights, which suffered in the summer of 2015 from visa issues that eventually relegated the team out of the League Championship Series (LCS), Smoothie joinedd Team Liquid as its original starting support.dddddddddddd But his time on the starting roster came to an end after one week, and he moved to its Challenger lineup.Ive had phases in my career, where I thought I was the best in my role, Smoothie says. I thought I was the worst in my role towards the end of [my time on] Team Liquid. Now Im up there again. I was just really complacent, even on Team Liquid, I thought I was mechanically gifted and everything would fall into place because I could make plays all around the map. That wasnt really the case though because macro play was a really big factor, and I didnt know a single bit of macro play at all.Team Liquid Academy was unable to qualify for the LCS, and Smoothie left shortly after. Despite the ups and downs, Smoothie says that while working with Team Liquid, he learned a lot thanks to their coach Choi Locodoco Yoon-sub, who taught him wider basics of the team.After leaving Liquid, he traveled to South Korea, where he trialed and boot camped with Cloud9 and joined their roster to split starting time with fellow support Michael Bunny FuFuu Kurylo.Fitting in with these guys was really, really easy; theyre really all very welcoming, and theyre really funny, so its not very hard to get along with them, he says. Theyre just a bunch of memers -- thats the reputation of Cloud9 -- its really easy. If you can just all laugh and just have fun, youre gonna have a good time on the team. From the start, it was really easy to transition into the team.During this week, following the loss of Team SoloMid and comments made by their head coach, Weldon Green, on South Korean boot camps, some North American fans stated on social media that boot camping in South Korea was not worthwhile. As someone who experienced it, Smoothie says he cant take those comments seriously.I definitely think [boot camping in South Korea] was worthwhile; I thought that whole [outrage] was pretty troll, he says. The amount I learned in Korea was insane, I pretty much learned how to play ranged supports in Korea, completely from the start. It was really hard because Im not gonna say the only hard bot lanes are Immortals and Team SoloMid, but even those guys dont punish mistakes as much as hard as Korean teams do ... I dont know, I think its pretty troll to say that going to Korea was a bad thing.And as Cloud9 has been eliminated, the North American League of Legends scene will enter its winter offseason and two-and-a-half months of roster changes, when much of the regions talent will move to new teams.The future for me is that Im just going to keep playing as my body allows me to, until whenever I decide I want to stop playing, Smoothie says. I like being on Cloud9 a lot. I think being on this team is a really good experience for me, and Ill just keep improving and eventually become as the best support in North America. Im not there yet, but maybe get there soon. ' ' '