San­ti­a­go Mos­quera net­ted a hat trick as FC Dal­las pound­ed the Rapids 4–1 in Texas on Wednes­day night, putting an end to Colorado’s four-match unbeat­en streak.

The Rapids out-pos­sessed and out-shot the Toros, but mis­takes and a strong counter-attack dealt Col­orado a lop­sided loss just days after cap­tur­ing the Rocky Moun­tain Cup.

Here are three take­aways from the mid-week match.

The Big D‑efense

After being named to the MLS Team of the Week for his per­for­mance at Real Salt Lake, Lalas Abubakar spent Wednes­day night on the bench.

The Rapids are in a run of eight match­es in 28 days, and the deci­sion came from coach Robin Fras­er to rest Abubakar. The pair­ing in his place, Drew Moor and Aus­ton Trusty, played with each oth­er for the first time.

“I thought we were pret­ty good but obvi­ous­ly you give up four goals as a cen­ter-back you’re dis­ap­point­ed,” Moor said. “Nei­ther of us are hap­py with the result. As far as the per­for­mance there was some good and there was some bad. I’d love to get a lit­tle bit more time with Auston.”

Clint Irwin made his 100th start in bur­gundy and his first since July 12. William Yarbrough has tak­en over as the No. 1 goalie.

“It was an unfor­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion for him because I think enough mis­takes were made in front of him. Oth­er­wise, it would have been a pret­ty decent per­for­mance,” Fras­er said of Yarbrough’s night. “It’s not even fair to eval­u­ate him based on the result.”

Andre on the board

Andre Shinyashi­ki final­ly got on the board in 2020, net­ting his first goal of the sea­son as a sec­ond-half sub­sti­tu­tion. Much like Diego Rubio, who opened 2020 his account last Sat­ur­day vs. Salt Lake, last year’s MLS Rook­ie of the Year was very pro­duc­tive last sea­son but has had trou­ble find­ing the goal.

That’s been a com­mon theme for the Rapids, who have tal­lied mul­ti­ple goals just once in their six games since MLS play restarted.

“It was a pret­ty dis­ap­point­ing result for us con­sid­er­ing we felt like we had pret­ty good con­trol ear­ly in the game,” Fras­er said. “We had a cou­ple of half-chances, a cou­ple of decent chances. Cer­tain­ly not pleased to have that much con­trol of the game and walk away with a 4–1 deficit.”

Fixing for more fixtures

While it is true that the Rapids four-match unbeat­en streak was undone, they have only won one game of their last nine. Sit­ting below the cut­line of an extend­ed post­sea­son, the Rapids have plen­ty of work to do in their final 11 games before Deci­sion Day.

“We don’t do a whole lot of look­ing at the stand­ings because if you don’t take care of the game in front of you, then the stand­ings don’t real­ly mat­ter,” Moor said. “One game at a time needs to be our men­tal­i­ty. I think that has been our men­tal­i­ty and the results haven’t gone our way.”