Taking on the Timbers was too tall of an ask for the Sounders

The Sounders fell once again to the dreaded Timbers, setting a franchise-record sixth straight loss. What role will this season’s games do for the rivalry against Portland?

The last time the Sounders played the Timbers, they were embarrassed at home and had their rivals scoring 5 goals against them, setting the franchise records for goals against. Would this time be any better?

Before the game, Paul Arriola was asked about how the team is handling their bruised and beaten lineup. Unfortunately for Arriola and the Sounders, Paul was added to the injured list just a handful of minutes into the game.

To me, his reaction looked eerily familiar. I had torn a calf muscle playing soccer years ago, and when it happened, I thought someone had thrown a rock and hit me flush on my calf. I turned back and looked for the rock, but there was no rock to be found and nobody behind me that could have thrown something.

While Arriola was working the sideline as the game started, he suddenly stopped and looked back like he had been kicked, but nobody was behind him. The Sounders are running tests, but that is what I gleaned from the sequence of events.

Earlier in the week, Hassani Dotson and Yéimar were added to the injured list, with Yéimar suffering a new injury after working his way back on the reserve squad. All the recent injuries have forced the Sounders’ training staff to look into every practice of the club, looking for anything they can do to avoid any injuries, but it does seem like the Sounders have just been unlucky on that front.

Even Kim Kee-Hee looked battered at the end of the game, which marked his return from an injury. Alex Roldan also saw some time after being hurt a couple of matches before the World Cup started. Dotson is hopeful to return in a couple of weeks, but it looks like at least a month before Yéimar and Christian Roldan are back in action. Jackson Ragen has served his two-game suspension, so he will be returning to the lineup, but the Sounders haven't been the same since Ragen and Yéimar were in the starting eleven.

Kalani Kossa-Rienzi opened the scoring with his second goal of the season, but the Sounders gave up a goal against the run of play at the end of the first half. The Sounders seemed to be unlucky when it came to calls, but in the end, one goal was not enough to beat the Timbers.

The Sounders-Timbers rivalry dates back well before either team was in the MLS. For the most part, the Sounders have had the upper hand since joining the league. When considering that the Sounders are the gold standard for the league, it can be assumed that they will return to form and go back to trouncing the Timbers, but every rivalry needs the "other team" to win every once in a while, and it makes sense that it would happen while the Sounders have been plagued by injuries.

As the young players are getting their chance to adjust and improve, it is easy to focus on the losing streak, but if they can have enough players return to the lineup, and possibly go out and get a high-caliber striker, they had a strong enough beginning of the season so they could still make their late-season push and a long run in the playoffs.

It doesn’t make watching loss after loss feel much better, and there were a few calls that could have gone the Sounders way and didn’t, but it is in the silver lining that the Sounders have tapped into in order to win all those trophies.

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