Winners & Losers: Sounders 2, Rapids 0

Would you believe that the Sounders hadn’t won their first two matches of the season since 2012? Well, you should; that is an easily verifiable fact that you can confirm by looking at historical Jesus results. Not that that makes Saturday’s win less fun, however. It’s still early, but Seattle will likely be sitting at the top of the table come Monday morning (barring a ludicrously big win by LAFC over Portland) and no one in the club will be feeling bad about that.

Winners

Kelvin Leerdam

Technically speaking, the right back is on pace to score 34 goals this year. Sure, he (probably) won’t, but the fact that Leerdam is now goal-dangerous after five assists last year is a big supplement to a club that looks like it may routinely overload defenses on the opposite side of the pitch. Leerdam credited his two goals to full fitness — his body apparently wasn’t fully right last year and it messed with his rhythm. If the man from Suriname can remain as involved in the attacking part of the field for Seattle, the club’s offense may run some clubs straight off the pitch.

Cristian Roldan

The mantra of just about every offensive and defensive line coach on every football team that’s ever existed has been: “low man wins.” Roldan, standing at 5-feet-8-inches, provided the latest evidence for that Saturday.

To go with the truck sticks, Roldan made both a team second-best 93 touches and 70 passes (94.3 percent complete), providing further evidence that the midfielder is an integral anchor in Seattle’s midfield which will continuously be ignored by national league media coverage that claim he’s overpaid.

Who did Roldan finish second to in passes and touches? Come on, you already know it’s ...

Nicolas Lodeiro

Another Sounders match, another night where Lodeiro made us all wonder if he secretly has an invisible pair of legs that help him cover that much space. Lodeiro took 114 touches (more than nearly any two Rapids players combined) and made 86 passes. Clearly, Lodeiro is one of the hardest working players in MLS.

Losers

The person responsible for this tweet

What did I just say? We don’t want to pile on, since the user in question quickly realized that they were going to be on the wrong side of history and took steps to purge this take from the internet (shout out to the screen shot crew). Still, it’s almost Bayless-esque to throw out a take that so clearly flies in the face of observable data.

It’s not like he just covers a ton of ground, either, as Lodeiro has 19 goals and 38 assists in 75 regular season MLS appearances.

The “Baldomero Toledo is a bad ref” narrative(?)

Sure, the referee gave out seven yellow cards on 32 fouls and had some decisions that left the home crowd less than enthused with the referee who is in his 16th season in the league, but Brian Schmetzer had Toledo’s back.

“I like Baldomero,” Schmetzer said. “I think Baldomero is a good referee. Whatever he sees, it’s his game to referee. I’m not an expert. Some games are like that, some games aren’t. I thought the game was chippy, but the opponent didn’t want to lose.”

Schmetzer is well-known for his defense of the league’s referees (it is, as he often says, a tough job). Maybe he can afford to be more generous after a win, but maybe there’s more to the business of refereeing than we let ourselves believe. Or maybe Schmetzer is just playing the long game...

Now it’s your turn. Who are your Winners & Losers?