Portland Timbers' Home Field Advantage

I felt like being a puppeteer today, so I looked at some stats that have been posted around the interwebs and figured it might be a good idea to post them all in one place. The main focus of these stats and numbers is the Portland Timbers' very strong home field advantage and how it might be too much for the Seattle Sounders to overcome. Here are some of the stats:

• Stacey gave a couple recent stats in the comments of her postscript article that are worth repeating. Portland has lost only once at home and only once by more than one goal all season.
• There is a very interesting discussion about parity on Bigsoccer.com by the community member Knave who analyzes the bottom three's (Chivas USA, DC United and Toronto FC) influence on the table. You really need to read the paragraphs focused completely on Seattle.
• In the very same thread on big soccer another commenter going by the name aperfectring posted this interesting stat: The Portland Timbers score 2.8 goals to every 1 goal conceded. Seattle on the other hand score .3 goals on the road to every goal conceded. He also gave stats for the other playoff team.
• Mike Donovan tweeted this out yesterday:

Worth repeating that the Timbers haven't lost to a Western Conference opponent at Jeld-Wen Field since July 2012. #RCTID

— Mike Donovan (@TheMikeDonovan) November 5, 2013

• The last time Portland was scored on at home was August 21st. Which means they currently have a 450+ minute shutout streak and the home games were against RSL, Seattle, Colorado, LA and Toronto FC.
• Seattle has scored 13 road goals all season and given up 27. Portland had the second best home goal differential in the league with +18 (LAG had +24 and New York also had +18)