Colorado Rapids vs. LA Galaxy - Player Ratings

Yeah, I know. I didn't want to talk about this game anymore, either. It was no fun watching the Rapids drop a 2-0 game against the Galaxy despite having one of the more inspired offensive performances we've seen in a while.

It was the same old problems we've been seeing for a while, though. The team had 19 shots, but most of them were either off-target or blocked. (Seriously, how often does a team have a 2/19 shot conversion ratio and do well in that game?) The defense did all right for themselves, excepting two awful looking flubs that provided stupidly easy goal chances for LA.

At least there were a couple of decent individual performances, right?

Matt Pickens - 5
That second goal didn't end up making a difference in the final score, but he probably should have done more on that shot. Even then, he was solid for the rest of the evening and couldn't do much about Keane's goal.

Marvell Wynne - 4
Speedy Wynne did what he usually does, which was play decent defense and cover for others when their speed failed. Unfortunately, it's pretty much impossible to cover for the lack of speed that Tyrone Marshall shows, so...

Luis Zapata - 3
When he's not making many runs forward, his usefulness drops by a pretty large margin. The guy is pretty much just Kosuke Kimura 2.0, can't defend worth a stone but can get forward well. Second goal was on him.

Tyrone Marshall - 3
Aaaand the first goal? On him! Just stop playing the guy already.

Drew Moor - 5
Drew Moor was Drew Moor, and that's really all we can ask of him.

Hendry Thomas - 7
After re-watching everything and looking at the passing game that Hendry put together, he was probably the player of the game. LA might have had even more chances had he not been playing sturdy defense and keeping his passes true the entire game.

Jeff Larentowicz - 4.5
On the other side of things, Jeff had a performance that wasn't that great. He wasn't terrible, but he looked shaky and looks a lot more scared to get forward than he used to when Pablo Mastroeni was by his side. Having Thomas next to him for a while should help get him back to his game -- distribution, followed by runs forward with the rest of the midfield where he can camp out at the edge of the box and take hard shots.

Martin Rivero - 6
Rivero's passing was as good as ever and the Rapids had some pretty good chances on the corner kicks he provided, but once again an inability by pretty much everyone to finish their shots doomed his final line.

Jaime Castrillon - 5
'Close but no Cigar' can sum up the past few games for Castrillon, but he did add a much better passing game in the midfield to his plethora of near-misses this time around.

Tony Cascio - 6.5
What could have been if Cascio hadn't been injured? He was the dynamo that was running the offense early on in the game and looked like the most likely player from the Rapids to score... right until he went down. Just our luck this year, I guess.

Andre Akpan - 5
Not as good as his performance against Portland, but still a serviceable performance for a guy who was starved for the ball in the end. No starter in the game saw the ball fewer times than Akpan did.

Omar Cummings - 5
Perhaps the best practice for Omar from now on would be using him as a substitute, because his half-game appearance in relief of the injured Tony Cascio was one of his best games in a while despite the lack of goals.

Brian Mullan - 4
Mullan still looks like he's fighting off a knock. I would keep him off the field for the rest of the year if I were Oscar Pareja.

Conor Casey - 4
Not much that Casey could have done on his shot that got blocked in the end, had he not taken that extra step it probably would have yielded the same result. Shame, because that was the best chance of the game for Colorado.