Most people looked at the roster overhaul this last off season and immediately thought "rebuilding year." Fast forward to the halfway point of the season for the Portland Timbers and it is obvious that this season can turn out to be much better. As touched lightly upon by some in the community there are some very interesting stats (which count all the games through 6/23/2013) which can be found on MLS' site. I wanted to point out the stats the pertain specifically to Portland for your reading enjoyment.

Supporter's Shield Standings

At this point in the year the SS standings really don't mean a lot because each team has not currently played the same number of games. However, it is freaking awesome to see who is currently first.

Individual Player Stats

All of the stats listed below can be found on this PDF, which is released by the league each week.

Goals: Will Johnson with 6 is 9th among scoring leaders. Out of the top 25 goal scorers in the league five of them are from the Portland Timbers. The team with the next most is two in the top 25 by Vancouver, New England, New York, and Columbus.

Assists: Rodney Wallace has 5 assists through 14 games. In 2011 5 assists would put RW third on the team in assists. Kalif got his 5 in the first 10 games of the season, if I remember right.

Game Winning goals: Rodney Wallace has 3 GWG which account for 60% of this goals scored this year. His three GWG put him third on the list, tied with 7 others.

Offsides: This stat is one of those interesting stats that probably doesn't mean a whole lot. Ryan Johnson is 6th with 17, just ahead of Kenny Cooper but far behind league leader Marco Di Vaio, who has 36. Di Vaio gets called for being in an offside position an average 2.5 times a game!

Shots on Goal: Diego Valeri leads the team and is 7th among the league leaders with 18 shots on goal.

Corner Kicks: Valeri has taken 58 corner kicks over the course of the season, which places him fourth among league leaders.

Games Played: Three Timbers are among the 7 players around the league who have played in 17 games so far this year. The three players are Will Johnson, Diego Chara and Darlington Nagbe.

Games Started: All three of the above have also started in all 17 of those games. Interesting to note that Eric Alexander has played in 17 games this season but has not started all 17 and is the lone player to do so.

Goalkeeping

GK Wins: Donovan Ricketts is 4th on the list with 7 wins.

Saves: Ricketts is again 4th on this list with 50 saves. What is interesting about this stat is when compared with the wins stat Ricketts has the most saves among the top 4.

Shutouts: Ricketts leads the league with 8 shutouts.

Longest Shutout streaks: Ricketts has the third and fourth longest shutout streaks. The fourth one lasted 312 minutes and the third is the only current shutout streak on the list and stands at 396 minutes. If his streak continues for two more games he would hold the longest streak this year.

Save Percentage: Donovan Ricketts is second on the list with a 75.8 save percentage. Only Nic Rimando has a better percentage and his is 77.4.

Team stats

Team Attendance: Team attendance is an interesting one to look at but I won't touch upon it too much. However, it is interesting to note that Portland's attendance has a standard devation of 0.

Team Totals and ranks:

Stats G A Sht SOG PG PA Block FC FS OFF CK Card Eject PTFC Total 28 33 233 87 2 2 2 217 217 54 82 22 1 Ranks 1 1 2 2 5 3 4 3 8 10

Team Goal Scoring/Allowed intervals:

Goals For 1 to 15 16 to 30 31 to 45 46 to 60 61 to 75 76 to 90 28 2 2 4 9 4 7 Goals Against 16 3 6 0 3 1 3

Record in one goal games: Portland has a 3-1-0 record in one goal games and is fourth best in the league.

Consecutive minutes without allowing a goal: Portland holds the third best streak, 312 minutes long, and seventh best streak, 278 minutes long and still counting. In order to have the best streak in the league they need to double their current streak to reach the 546 minutes Sporting Kansas City put up.

Road Record: Portland has the best road record in the league as they are the only team without a loss. When you look at the other SS contenders' road records none of them reach above .500 and all of them have three or more road losses.

Team Shots by Half: Portland has shot 109 times in the first half of games and 124 in the second half.

Shots against by half: Portland has only allowed 98 shots in the first half of games but has allowed 125 shots in the second half. Portland is second to last in the total shots allowed category but fifth in goals allowed.

Record when scoring first: Portland is 6-0-3 when they score the first goal.

Record when allowing the first goal: Portland is a league best 1-1-3 when they allow the first goal.

Record when leading at the half: Portland is 3-0-1 when leading at the half

Record when trailing at the half: Portland is a league best 0-1-4 when trailing at the half. Amazingly only 5 teams have won after trailing at the half, San Jose has won twice.

Team Undefeated streaks: Portland's streak is the best in the league and stands at 15 and counting. Dallas has the next best streak at 9. Portland's streak is the fourth longest streak in MLS history and the second longest during one single season.

Historical Stats

Only one current Portland Timber shows up among the all time leader, the man between the pipes. Donovan Ricketts has the third best MLS career GAA with a 1.10 and sits behind only Kasey Keller (1.06) and Jimmy Neilsen (1.01).

Bonus:

According to this website Portland now has a 97.5 chance of making the playoffs, an 11.6% chance of winning MLS cup, and 25.2% chance of winning the SS.

What do you think of these stats? Do they show that Portland deserves to be in contention for the SS?