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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. 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On June 12, just as the sun sets on the magnificent historical city of Sao Paulo the inventors, innovators and purveyors of “joga bonitowill” open their campaign. The opponent, Croatia and all its football might and will. As opposites do attract we are set for a corker of an opener. Adidas NMD Mens Clearance . -- 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. ESPN rounds up all the reaction from up and down the paddock following Friday practice at the 2016 British Grand Prix.MercedesLewis Hamilton:?Its been a great first day. Lots of positive steps forward with the balance of the car. Its incredibly gusty out there, which is one of the awesome challenges of this circuit. Coming through Maggots and Becketts then down through Stowe, I was actually yelling in my helmet, its that exciting! What a great combination of corners - particularly when the wind is blowing in the right direction. Today we had a bit of a head wind and it just felt epic through there - one of the most fun rollercoaster rides you can imagine. Weve still got work to do as our ultimate pace could be better. But the long run was good, so if we can keep the car in that window well be in a strong position.Nico Rosberg:?I had a good morning session. It looks like we are quickest out there and that it will be a good battle between me and Lewis. Its a shame that I wasn′t able to have a run in the afternoon - but Im sure we can fix the problems by tomorrow morning. I will see what Lewis learned today and try to adapt this for tomorrow and Sunday. Its great to see that there are so many passionate fans out there and I know a lot of team members from the factories are here too, so I hope they have a fantastic weekend and we can put on a good show for them.Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical):?Its great to be back at Silverstone in front of so many enthusiastic fans - including many from Brackley and Brixworth who get to see their hard work in action out on track today. We ran through a very good programme in FP1 on the medium tyre without any issues. Unfortunately, however, it became clear shortly before FP2 began that there was a water leak on Nicos car. We were optimistic of a quick fix initially but, after further checks, we opted against running the risk of losing an engine from the pool. We will be looking into that overnight to understand what happened and our apologies to Nico for losing him some important running time this afternoon. On Lewis side we managed a very strong programme on the medium and soft tyre, on both high and low fuel, gathering all the information we needed for the race on Sunday. We have plenty of work to do this evening but were looking forward to what should be a closely contested battle over the weekend.FerrariSebastian Vettel:?I think it was a bit of mixed conditions this afternoon: it was quite windy, and at the beginning it was not so good. I believe the long run was sort of OK, but we need to have a look and do some comparisons to know where we are. We know that we have lot of work ahead of us for tomorrow to improve the car but, as a baseline for today, we understood and learned quite a lot of things. As for the Halo device I tested this morning, it has quite a lot of impact in terms of visibility.Kimi Raikkonen:?Im really happy for the renewal of my contract, Im happy to be here now and to stay for next year. Its nice to know that the team believes in me and I believe in them. Now we can put all the effort in the racing and try to achieve better results. On the track it has been a tricky day, conditions were not very easy, there was quite a lot of wind in some places and this was not helping. We are not very happy of where we finished today, but since this morning we have been improving things. We have been working in the right direction all day and Im sure we can do even better for tomorrow.WilliamsValtteri Bottas: First of all, its good fun to drive at Silverstone. Weve made some good steps with the car today from FP1 to FP2, but theres still plenty of work to do. Its been a while since weve run the medium and the soft tyres, so theres still some things to look into regarding getting 100% out of them. Hopefully tomorrow we can be closer to the front because theres a bigger gap than we expected today. Graining is still a bit of an issue with the soft tyres, but theres no problems with the medium. Tonight well be looking at the tyres and the new front wing.Felipe Massa:?It wasnt really a fantastic Friday. We are struggling a little bit in terms of pace on the car and I definitely expected to be a little bit better for a Friday, but we are working hard to improve our performance. Lets wait and see how we are tomorrow compared to the others.Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering:?Weve been focusing on three areas today. Testing the new aerodynamic parts on the car has been the priority. Weve got the new front wing here, so were ensuring weve done our due diligence to evaluate it. Weve also been testing various different set-up options across the cars, in terms of mechanical and aerodynamic set-up. Weve been tyre testing, running the soft and the medium compounds. Its not that clear cut yet as we saw different teams doing a variety of programmes. At this stage, the medium compound looks a little bit difficult to manage for us and some of the other front-runners. We need to try and understand that. The pace is definitely in the car, we just have a lot of work to do tonight to ensure we can unlock it tomorrow.Red BullDaniel Ricciardo:?Generally today was really good. Its always hard to know where the others are but I think were pretty happy and the longer runs seemed to be a bit more competitive so were getting there. Not a bad Friday. We look fairly good compared to Lewis at the moment but I feel theyll have a bit more at their disposal tomorrow. I especially wanted to get on top of the race runs today and understand it a bit better, as that was a weakness last week in Austria. I think were doing alright. Sunday could be a really good fight with Ferrari for a podium. Hopefully we can make those tyres last a bit longer and get up there.Max Verstappen:?A very good day. I enjoy driving here and we are competitive, although it was a bit tricky in the second session with the wind but thats the same for everyone. Long run and short run pace was good so we are hoping to be close to the front. You never know what Ferrari or other teams will do but for the moment we are very happy with where we are, its a bit of a power track but there are still some corners which suit us. We are not too far off the Mercedes which is always good. There were one or two balance issues so we will make some changes overnight because you always want to be going forward and remain up front. Im pretty happy but I want to go even faster tomorrow. I think if we can be the second team on the grid that would be very good. Definitely a positive start to the weekend.Force IndiaNico Hulkenberg:?It was a pretty standard Friday, even though we had gale-strength winds in the afternoon that really made the conditions difficult out there. The times dont tell the whole story, as we didnt run the soft tyres in the afternoon and so our final positions dont look that good. Across the two sessions, we ran all three compounds, although there is not a huge difference in feeling between them. We have a few areas to improve, but in general I am quite happy with the balance of the car. It will be important to find a way to reduce the effects of the wind on the car and hopefully well find a bit more performance for tomorrow.Sergio Perez:?It was a very intense day and we now have plenty of information for the team to go through. We have some important decisions to make, in particular for Sundays race, but I think we have learned enough to make the right calls. We were able to run on all tyre compounds and I feel we are in a good position for the weekend. We need to focus on our long run pace - thats where we have a margin to improve and thats the main area we will work on tonight.Vijay Mallya, Team Principal and Managing Director: The conditions out there were not the easiest, with very strong winds that could unsettle the car, especially through the high-speed corners. This morning we were able to evaluate the new parts we brought for the car, while the rest of the days work was focussed on preparing for the race. In any case, we only used the two harder compounds in the afternoon session. The drivers are reasonably happy with the baseline set-up and with the balance of the car. Of course, we had a wide range of parts to test on the car and slightly different programmes for the two drivers, so we will analyse all the data tonight to find the best way to move forward. Overall, were happy with how the day went, especially in these conditions, and we can be optimistic for tomorrow and Sunday.RenaultKevin Magnussen:?Overall we had a good session working through our programme. The rear of the car felt a little more unpredictable and made it a bit tricky to drive this afternoon. It was very windy during the session this afternoon and that of course had a bit of an impact on the running today. Hopefully itll come down a little bit for the rest of the weekend. We did work on the tyres and the softer compound didnt last very long for me - only just about five laps. I had a better run on the medium tyres and they felt easier to manage. Theres more work to be done in preparation for Saturday so thats what Ill concentrate on with my engineers to be ready for tomorrow. Jolyon Palmer:?Silverstone is a great track, with loads of great fans and I enjoyed driving out there today. It was a typical Friday for us on track. We tried out two different tyre compounds and low fuel levels, plus a run on high fuel. We were on the medium for most of the day: it has a low working range so it is difficult to build up temperatures and the car can feel inconsistent to drive at the start. It got very windy out there at times too, which didnt help. The soft gives very good grip over one lap but then degrades quickly. I think it was an OK result; it looks like we are in a similar position to normal. I am sure we can find something tomorrow, and we have to maximise what we can do. It looks as though well have British weather all weekend but a bit of rain mixing it up would be good for us!Esteban Ocon:?Overall it was a productive day for myself and for the team, who were happy with how the day went. We had a clean day and were able to run through all the procedures and the run plan as expected. I learnt a lot today - it was the first time I have driven the car on a very fast track and I felt like I was getting close to the limits in the high speed sections. Its difficult to get right, but I have to keep pushing and keep learning. Im looking forward to driving some more FP1 sessions and getting more experience.Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director:?Esteban did a brilliant job for us this morning. He was quick enough and didnt put a foot wrong despite not having been in the car for some time. He will continue to grow in confidence as he takes part in moree sessions.ddddddddddddBoth Jolyon and Kevin similarly did a very solid job in at times difficult weather conditions and completed their programmes according to plan; we have some further work planned to improve our performance, particularly in low-speed corners, which should see us better our lap times tomorrow.Toro RossoDaniil Kvyat:?Looking at the time sheets from the two sessions, our performance was not good enough today. The conditions were quite tricky out there because of the wind and I think that had something to do with my spin in FP2. It also made it difficult to understand exactly which areas of the car we need to work on the most, but the weather is the same for everyone. Therefore, we have to come up with something different in terms of our set-up before FP3, especially when it comes to the short runs. We have been in a similar situation before on Friday and managed to turn things around for the rest of the weekend, so I am hopeful of improving tomorrow.Carlos Sainz:?Id say this has been our toughest Friday so far this season... We all expected a bit more performance wise. Its been a very tricky day because of the wind and track conditions, so we definitely have a bit of work to do overnight in order to overcome these difficulties. We arent where we wanted to be, but this doesnt mean that we cant turn things around and be on top of it tomorrow - Im confident we can make this happen!Phil Charles, (Chief Race Engineer):?It has been a bit of a difficult day. Our short runs have been very scrappy and neither driver is particularly happy. We have not hit a sweet spot yet with the car and tyres. Our low speed cornering performance in particular is not where we really want or expect it to be. We have made quite a few changes through FP1 and FP2 to try to tackle this. We will need to look carefully through the data tonight, especially as the often-strong Silverstone winds came up quite a lot in FP2. This made the cars very tricky to drive and so it was not easy to get clear answers on the changes we made. The wind gusts also probably contributed to Daniils off at the start of FP2. We changed the front wing and he settled in pretty quickly after this. On the positive side, our long runs at the end of FP2 look relatively better so we simply have to do our homework tonight, try to solve that engineering puzzle and find some short run performance.SauberFelipe Nasr:?It was a good day. We were able to run through our planned programme. It is positive to see that the engine upgrade is a decent step. Especially at this track, a good straight-line speed helps to gain some lap time. In general it was all about setting up the car on soft and medium tyres today. It was a bit tricky to get the soft tyres to work with the colder conditions in the morning, but in the afternoon we got a much better feeling for the car as well as with the tyres.Marcus Ericsson:?It is good news that we tested our new rear wing here in Silverstone in FP1. We were able to collect a lot of data, which we now have to analise and understand properly. On the other hand, I was only able to do one stint in the morning. In FP2 we then had a busy programme with short and long-runs on medium as well as on soft tyres.McLarenFernando Alonso:?Everything feels okay with this weekends PU upgrade - hopefully, the engineers can look at the numbers to validate the improvements and check reliability for the rest of the weekend. I know Jenson had some trouble in FP2, so we need to avoid any reliability issues in order to score some points on Sunday. Weve regularly been performing well on Fridays, but we still to extract more performance from the car on Saturdays. Still, weve managed to get into Q3 for the past couple of races, so well try and repeat that again tomorrow. Its very windy out there, and theres more wind and rain forecast for tomorrow, so it could be difficult for everyone.Jenson Button:?I had a tricky afternoon session: I did one lap on the Prime tyre at the start of the session, then had a problem and had to sit in the garage for half an hour, then went out and completed one lap, had another problem, and was only able to get out on the Option tyre at the very end. Hopefully the problems we encountered today will be resolved by tomorrow and we can get some running in - fortunately, it appears to be more about number-crunching on the laptops than anything else, so we should be able to get back on track. Nonetheless, it still looks like itll be difficult to get into Q3 tomorrow, but if we get a clear morning session, I think that would help improve our fortunes for qualifying. Fernando found some good pace today - so tomorrow my car will hopefully be fitted with new components, well get some positive running under our belts, and well look a bit more competitive, too.Eric Boullier, McLaren Racing Director:?It was a fairly routine Friday for both drivers, albeit one made trickier by the extremely blustery conditions that affected the track throughout the day. Fernando made smooth progress through both sessions, but Jenson was delayed at the start of the FP2 while his mechanics investigated the source of some irregular engine data. Finally, its great to see so many enthusiastic fans packing out the grandstands on the first day of the race weekend. Its always inspiring and motivating to see how popular the sport is here in the UK, and it really gives the whole team a boost to see that level of support.Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda R&D Co Ltd Head of F1 Project & Executive Chief Engineer:?Silverstone is a track that tests all aspects of the car, therefore it is still too early to confirm if our engine update has taken full effect. Both Fernando and Jenson struggled with the gusty winds and the low grip track, which destabilised the cars and made them difficult to drive. However, even though Jenson was limited in FP2 running due to engine data issues, our days results were surprisingly encouraging, and we think we are heading in the right direction overall. Not surprisingly, we are expecting a rainy Saturday and Sunday, but we are hoping that we can reach Q3 without relying on changing conditions as we did at the Austrian GP.ManorPascal Wehrlein:?We came here with the expectation that we would perhaps struggle slightly more than in Austria. Our tyre management was better there, whereas today we are seeing the same issues we experienced in the races before that. Having said that, we seem to have made some progress in FP2. At this stage I prefer to wait until after FP3 to see if we can continue to make some progress, but I would like to think we can have a good fight with Sauber and Renault. A lot will depend on the weather, I think.Rio Haryanto:?Its one of my favourites. Its very fast and flowing, very high speed, but with a tricky final sector where you have some slow corners. I think we found a good rhythm this morning, but this afternoon we tried an alternative direction and it didnt work out so well. Its good to have that confirmation of our FP1 direction. Its always too early to say how well fare in the race -- until the race -- but we did some long runs and that will enable us to measure ourselves against Renault and Sauber and see what we need to do for the rest of the weekend.Dave Ryan, Racing Director:?Its been a good day of testing and evaluation to confirm our direction for the rest of the weekend. Its not simply a case of picking up where we left off in Austria unfortunately; this is a very different track with its own challenges. Theres some room for improvement into tomorrow and only then will we get a true picture of how were looking versus the cars around us.HaasRomain Grosjean:?It was a pretty good day evaluating the three different tire compounds. The car doesnt feel too bad at high speed, which is great news for lapping at this track. We still need to find some performance in getting the tires to work. That will be the main job this evening when we go over everything from todays two sessions.Esteban Gutierrez:?It was an easy morning for me not competing in FP1. I then started my programs for FP2, which was pretty positive from the laps we did and everything that we tried. Today gave us an opportunity to change the setup and send us in the right direction. So far, the car feels good. However, the conditions were tricky out there with the wind. Weve got a bit of work to do, but well be using all the data weve gathered from today to get the most out of car for tomorrow, especially for qualifying.Charles Leclerc:?Its been an amazing experience for my first time in a Formula One car. I was struggling quite a lot at the beginning, as Silverstone is quite a hard track with lots of high-speed corners, and I found the steering wheel quite stiff in comparison to anything Ive driven before. However, it was a great session and lap after lap I gained confidence. The last run was on old tires, so we couldnt show our real pace, but I think we were quite fast. We completed the program and that was the main aim, so Im happy with that. It was probably one of the best days of my life, and to do it with Haas has been even more amazing.Guenther Steiner, Team Principal:?Good sessions for us today. FP1 and FP2 went to plan and we completed our full program without any problems. Charles did a good job this morning in FP1. We must remember that this was his first time in an F1 car - under difficult conditions too, as the track was still a little damp. He did a good job and we got all the data we needed from his runs. Romain and Esteban also ran their programs, so we achieved everything we needed from their sessions to prepare for tomorrow. Esteban took the information that was gathered this morning and continued the tasks set. So overall, were looking positive for tomorrow. I hope FP3 goes as well as today has for us, and well try to do the best we can for qualifying.PirelliPaul Hembery, Motorsport Director:?Silverstone has been at its spectacular high-speed best today, with last years pole position time already beaten in FP1, despite the fact that the circuit was comparatively green. With rain forecast for FP3 tomorrow, and possibly even for qualifying too, todays sessions are likely to be very relevant for the race on Sunday - although theres a chance of mixed conditions at the grand prix itself as well. Obviously all the drivers were running different fuel loads today, which makes direct comparisons quite tricky, but in isolation were seeing half a second separating the hard and medium compounds for now in terms of performance, plus 1.7 seconds between medium and soft: so just over two seconds covering the whole range here from hard to soft. ' ' '