Earthquakes cruise past depleted Sounders

SEATTLE – After an especially difficult week, the Seattle Sounders hoped to find refuge on the pitch Saturday.

But only new frustrations awaited there, as the ravaged roster limped into CenturyLink Field and endured a 2-0 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes.

“I think we were really looking forward to this game,” veteran defender Zach Scott said. “The best remedy for poor performance in the past or just a tough game like the (U.S. Open Cup loss to Portland is) to get back on the field. That’s what everybody wants to do is to stop the chatter and getting back to what we love and what we’re good at.”

It turned out the Sounders weren’t good enough on this day, but they didn’t think the problem was the distractions of the week – and there had been no shortage of those.

In addition to Open Cup elimination by a their archrival, there also were the off-field issues that accompanied and followed that match: a red card to Clint Dempsey for tearing up the referee’s notebook, fans throwing items from the stands, Schmid’s postgame reactions to the refereeing, a Thursday apology from Schmid and owner Adrian Hanauer, all followed by Major League Soccer hitting Dempsey with a three-game suspension on Friday.

There also were injuries that left Obafemi Martins, Osvaldo Alonso, Chad Barrett, Gonzalo Pineda and Leo Gonzalez unavailable. Adding in Dempsey, the Sounders were without four starters, all three designated players, their top three forwards, and guys who have combined for 18 of their 23 goals this season.

On top of that, Schmid said Brad Evans (hamstring), Andy Rose (hamstring) and Marco Pappa (illness) all might have sat out had the roster been less depleted. All started, but only Pappa was around for the end. Others who didn’t show up on the injury report were still worn from the midweek loss.

 “Our message going into the game was that we were coming out here to win the game,” Schmid said. “We’re going to fight and we’re going to battle and we’re going to make things tough on them.”

Seattle (9-5-2) did that for most of the first half hour. But in the 28th minute, the defense lost its shape, San Jose’s Sanna Nyassi ran into space on the right and fired the first goal into the far netting.

Matias Perez Garcia scored the final goal for the Quakes (6-5-4).