Steve Clark has been a Portland Timber for less than three weeks, but he will be the club's starting goalkeeper on Saturday night.

Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese confirmed Wednesday that goalkeeper Jeff Attinella, who pulled his hamstring in the second half of a match against the New England Revolution last Saturday, would miss Saturday's match against the Colorado Rapids. Attinella is expected to be out for a few weeks as recovers from the injury.

"It's unfortunate, but it's a lot better than we anticipated," said Savarese about Attinella's injury. "It's something that we're evaluating, but we think that it's not going to take too long. It's a matter of a few weeks. It could have been a lot worse, but for now it looks like it is something where he will be able to come back sooner than we expected."

For now, Clark, who the Timbers acquired in mid-August after backup goalkeeper Jake Gleeson suffered a season-ending injury, will move into the starting role.

Savarese said Wednesday that Clark would start against the Colorado Rapids Saturday over goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh, who has been with the club since 2017, but has yet to make an appearance for the first team. McIntosh has made 16 starts for T2 this season and was named to the USL Team of the Week after helping the team earn a 1-0 shutout win over St. Louis FC last week.

"For this game, Clark will be the one playing," Savarese said. "But Kendall is also doing very well and we have a lot of games coming up. They will be competing."

Clark is an experienced goalkeeper that has made over 100 starts in MLS since joining the league in 2014. Clark spent three seasons as the starting goalkeeper for the Columbus Crew before joining D.C. United in 2017. The 32-year-old struggled to get minutes with D.C. United and was ultimately waived by the club earlier this month. The Timbers picked Clark up off waivers.

Clark made his Timbers debut after Attinella went down in the 56th minute of last Saturday's match against New England. Just two minutes after Clark entered the game, New England capitalized on a rebound following a save from Clark to score their lone goal of the match. The Timbers fought back to earn a 1-1 draw.

McIntosh, 24, has excelled on loan at the USL level with T2 over the last two seasons, but has yet to earn a start with the first team. While McIntosh could be a starting option at goalkeeper for the Timbers in the future, Clark certainly brings more MLS experience to the team at the moment.

"I feel that Kendall is a very talented goalkeeper and he could step in and play, but at the moment, in this particular match, we feel that Clark should be the one stepping in the game and we have our reasons," Savarese said. "Still, Kendall can play in any moment. We believe in him completely. He's, as I said, a talented goalkeeper, that has so many qualities and works very hard. That's why he's somebody that we treasure and we want to help continue to develop."

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg