Seattle Sounders 2, Chicago Fire 1
The Seattle Sounders benefited from an own goal in the 89th minute to beat the Chicago Fire 2-1 Saturday night for their fourth straight win.
Chicago's Gonzalo Segares ran back toward the goal to clear the ball and instead knocked it into the net.
''We did a very good job in making offensive chances and we didn't connect on that one but we connected on an own goal,'' said Seattle midfielder Mauro Rosales. ''It was a lucky one. But I think we deserved the win because we had the effort to go forward and control of the game. It was a great game for us.''
Lamar Neagle also scored for Seattle (14-8-4), which has won seven of its last eight to move two points behind first-place Real Salt Lake in the Western Conference.
Sporting KC 3, Columbus Crew 0
Claudio Bieler converted a penalty kick in the first half for his first goal in nearly two months, leading Sporting Kansas City to a 3-0 victory over the Columbus Crew on Saturday night.
Soony Saad and C.J. Sapong also scored for Kansas City (13-9-6), and Jimmy Nielsen got his 10th shutout to take a share of the league lead with Philadelphia's Zac MacMath.
Sporting moved into the Eastern Conference lead, three points ahead of New York and Montreal, who both play on Sunday. Columbus (9-14-5) dropped to 1-1 under interim manager Brian Bliss, who replaced the fired Robert Warzycha on Monday.
FC Dallas 3, Vancouver Whitecaps 1
Mauro Diaz and Jair Benitez scored in the final five minutes to lift FC Dallas to a 3-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday night.
Je-Vaughn Watson also scored for FC Dallas (10-7-10), which moved three points ahead of Vancouver for sixth place in the Western Conference.
Diaz got the tiebreaking goal in the 87th minute when he tapped a pass from Fabian Castillo into the center of the net from inside 10 yards. Benitez added another goal with a looping volley from close to midfield that sailed over the head of Whitecaps goalkeeper David Ousted in the 90th.
LA Galaxy 0, Colorado Rapids 1
Colorado took advantage of a Los Angeles' absence of international players and won 1-0 at the Galaxy on Saturday to cut the gap between the two teams to a single point.
That result and Seattle's home win over Chicago saw the Sounders move clear into second place in the Western Conference.
Colorado's Edson Buddle scored the sole goal in the 75th minute, rocketing a shot into the upper-left corner of the net after Vicente Sanchez stripped Galaxy defender Todd Dunivant of the ball on Los Angeles' left wing.
The Galaxy, which was without Robbie Keane, Landon Donovan, Omar Gonzalez and Jaime Penedo on international duty, lost at home for the first time since early May.
Portland Timbers 4, Toronto 0
Kalif Alhassan opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time, Portland added three goals in the last 10 minutes, and backup goalkeeper Milos Kocic stepped in to earn the shutout as the Timbers beat Toronto FC 4-0 on Saturday night.
Rodney Wallace, Will Johnson and Diego Valeri all scored in the late flurry to help Portland (10-5-12) remain tied with Colorado for fourth place in the Western Conference.
''We want to keep being very business-like, very professional with our approach. We're not going to get ahead of ourselves,'' Portland head coach Caleb Porter said. ''We're going to focus on the next game, that's Chivas. We're not going to worry about the other games.''
The four-goal margin of victory was Portland's largest since joining MLS in 2011.
Toronto (4-13-10) remained 17 points out of a playoff spot.
