PORTLAND, Ore. – In the end, this is how it’s supposed to be over the second half of the Portland Timbers season. The price the team played through 12-straight road games to start the 2019 season came with an implicit guarantee: Over the season’s last months, your team can balance the scales, with the imperfections that kill you away becoming mere blemishes at home.
So far, so good. In the second game of Portland’s new, 10-match homestand, the Timbers followed Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Vancouver with another comfortable victory. Though a 10-man Chicago Fire reduced two-goal leads twice throughout the match's final 18 minutes, Portland rode early goals from Jorge Moreira and Brian Fernandez to climb back above the playoff line, their 3-2 win leaving the team seventh in the Western Conference.