Rapids player ratings vs. Toronto: How bad for Colorado? This bad…

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Toronto's Andrew Wiedeman celebrates his first MLS goal, as Brian Mullan and Martin Rivero can only watch.

This edition of Rapids player ratings comes from guest contributor Chris “UZ” White, a Colorado native who runs the Burgundy Wave blog and is a member of the Bulldog Supporters Group. Find Chris on Twitter @BurgundyWave and @uzworm

Frustration isn’t quite strong enough a word for the emotion that the Colorado Rapids and their fans are going through right now.

After blowing their fourth 1-0 lead of the season against Toronto FC — with similar late losses against New England, San Jose and Dallas already stinking up the joint — the Rapids seem to be out of the playoff picture even though the season is only halfway through.

Against Toronto, we saw the same things we’ve seen time and time again from this squad: lots of possession at times, some lackluster defending and plenty of chances that went wanting. There were some good signs throughout the game, of course. For once, a tweak to a road lineup worked out well in the form of Wells Thompson getting a start, and Tyson Wahl showed decently in his first ever start as a Rapid.

Still, when a 2-1 loss is staring you in the face, the negatives always seem to outweigh the positives. The ratings:

Matt Pickens – 5
Giving up that penalty kick right at the start was a bit of a foolish move, though the through pass that led to it wasn’t covered all that well. Couldn’t do all that much about either goal, but it’s starting to look like his brilliant early season form is regressing a bit.

Marvell Wynne – 3
This won’t be going on Marvell’s resume. He didn’t cover the through pass that led to the penalty kick and was more standing next to Andrew Wiedeman on the second goal than covering him. He needed to use his defensive abilities more than his speed against a somewhat slow Toronto squad, and it usually doesn’t work out incredibly well for the speedster when that’s the case.

Drew Moor – 5.5
Moor was the most solid guy defensively on the evening, but even he had his errors. The goal by Ryan Johnson was partially the fault of pretty much every defender at some point during that play, Moor included. His tackling and coverage were mostly spotless, as we’ve come to expect from the captain.

Tyson Wahl – 5
A solid debut for Wahl, at the very least much better than most showings this year from Tyrone Marshall and Scott Palguta. For a guy signed to be a depth player in the central and left defense, that’s pretty good to see. Supposedly, he was told to be more of a ‘stay-at-home’ defender, which explains why his attacking was a bit lacking.

Hunter Freeman – 4.5
Freeman put a great ball into the box for Conor Casey to put into the net. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to talk about regarding Freeman other than that.

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Martin Rivero was knocked down by Toronto's Ashtone Morgan.

Jeff Larentowicz – 4
In all honesty, Larentowicz didn’t have that terrible a game. His passing was decent, his defense in the midfield wasn’t awful, etc. The reason he gets knocked down a peg is for the unfortunate foul he committed in the 92nd minute which earned him a yellow card and a suspension for the immensely important game against Salt Lake on Saturday.

Wells Thompson – 6
Wait a minute, Wells Thompson getting that high a score? Yes indeed, starting him turned out to be a great move by Oscar Pareja as he sought more defensive presence in the midfield. Wells had a solid passing game, put some decent shots on net and most importantly, covered for the defense quite often to good effect. Can’t complain about that.

Brian Mullan – 5
It’s a shame that Brian’s great shot in the first half slammed the post instead of going into the net, because that was one of the only great chances past Casey’s goal that the Rapids saw all day long.

Martin Rivero – 4
What is it about Rivero playing on turf? Who knows, all we know is that he doesn’t seem to like it. There wasn’t much to speak of from Rivero in the attack, and the Rapids weren’t given enough set pieces to do too much with.

The Canadian Press, Fred Thornhill

Conor Casey moves past Toronto's Terry Dunfield.

Conor Casey – 6.5
It’s been a great past few games for Casey, and he finally earned his 50th MLS goal. Well deserved, and he probably could have had another one if the good passing game hadn’t dried up after Toronto scored their first goal. He was the man of the match for Colorado.

Omar Cummings – 4.5
When the only thing that we have to praise Omar on is a better than mediocre passing game, we’re probably not looking at a performance to remember from him. Absolutely nothing from Cummings to write home about.

SUBS

Tony Cascio – 6
Once again, Cascio played the super-sub role and he played it well. At this point, it might just make sense to start the rookie again because his energy always seems to boost the team and we’ve seen that he can keep that up for more than the 20 minutes per game he’s getting.

Edu – 3.5
We’re starting to get another Caleb Folan on our hands here, an overpaid foreigner who seems completely uninterested in the game whenever he’s in. At least Folan scored a goal or two in his first few appearances to give some hope.

Jamie Smith – N/A
Jamie Smith played? Huh.