Did MLS suddenly adopt the Scottish system of splitting the top half of the table from the bottom? That would explain why the bottom four teams in the MLS East all faced off this week in a macabre mini-tournament of sorts. Meanwhile, Los Angeles and Salt Lake played a terrific rematch of last fall’s MLS Cup final.

One of the bottom four matchups, Thursday’s Toronto-Philadelphia game, was already covered. On to the weekend (lineups are estimated from Match Tracker and from what was visible on the highlights; if you see someone who wound up playing elsewhere on the field, please pass it along):

Los Angeles 2, Salt Lake 1

– LA (4-4-2): Donovan Ricketts; Sean Franklin RB (Bryan Jordan 44), A.J. DeLaGarza CB, Omar Gonzalez CB, Todd Dunivant LB; Charlie Birchall DM, Michael Stephens RM, Juninho CM (Alan Gordon 81), Mike Magee LM (Alex Cazumba 69); Landon Donovan F, Edson Buddle F
– RSL (4-4-2): Nick Rimando; Tony Beltran RB, Jamison Olave CB, Nat Borchers CB, Robbie Russell LB; Kyle Beckerman DM, Will Johnson RM, Andy Williams CM, Nelson Gonzalez LM (Collen Warner 64); Alvaro Saborio F (Pablo Campos 81), Fabian Espindola F (Robbie Findley 59)
– The Galaxy loses their shutout streak on a fluky goal, with Kyle Beckerman’s shot taking a wild skip off the Home Depot Center non-FieldTurf.
– Edson Buddle has scored all seven of the Galaxy’s goals this year. Freaky. Landon Donovan has four assists.
– RSL’s 1-2-1 record is deceiving; the defending champs have had only one home game and a pair of difficult away games, and they haven’t been outclassed at all. Robbie Findley’s shot off the post would’ve been a tough one for the Galaxy to overcome had it been a few inches to the left.

Seattle 1, Kansas City 0 (highlights)
– Seattle (4-4-2): Kasey Keller; James Riley RB, Tyrone Marshall CB, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado CB, Leonardo Gonzalez LB; Osvaldo Alonso DM,  Freddie Ljungberg RM (Patrick Ianni 90), Peter Vagenas CM, Steve Zakuani LM (Michael Fucito 85); Fredy Montero F, Pat Noonan (Brad Evans 70).
– KC (4-5-1, two defensive mids): Jimmy Nielsen; Michael Harrington RB, Pablo Escobar CB, Jimmy Conrad CB (Matt Besler 32), Roger Espinoza LB, Jack Jewsbury DM, Stephane Auvray DM, Josh Wolff RM (Teal Bunbury 82), Davy Arnaud CM, Ryan Smith LM, Kei Kamara F (Chance Myers 90).
– Bad miss for Pat Noonan in the 10th minute as Seattle pressed early.
– Both defenses lapsed in stoppage time. Jimmy Nielsen, who had a strong save earlier, couldn’t make the last save. Kasey Keller did, bailing out Michael Fucito, who Sigi Schmid said was still in a state of euphoria from scoring.
– Not shown in the highlights but mentioned in the recap: Zakuani made contact with referee Jair Marrufo but only saw yellow.
– Jimmy Conrad left in the first half with a calf injury. Think that might have affected the outcome?

Houston 3, Chivas USA 0 (highlights)
– Did you see the Lovel Palmer goal?

– CUSA (4-4-2): Zach Thornton; Mariano Trujillo RB, Dario Delgado CB, Michael Umana CB, Jonathan Bornstein LB; Jesus Padilla RM, Sacha Kljestan CM, Jorge Flores CM (Justin Braun 46), Blair Gavin LM; Maicon Santos F (Ben Zemanski 46), Chukwudi Chijindu F (Gerson Mayen 78)
– Houston (4-4-2): Pat Onstad; Andrew Hainault RB; Bobby Boswell CB, Eddie Robinson CB, Mike Chabala LB; Corey Ashe RM, Lovel Palmer CM, Geoff Cameron CM (Francisco Navas Cobo 93), Brad Davis LM (Adrian Serioux 86); Brian Mullan F (Danny Cruz 83), Dominic Oduro F
– Not sure why Oduro felt the need to do the “hot boot” celebration after his goal. He could’ve tapped that in with his knee, his backside or just about any other part of his body.

San Jose 2, New England 0 (highlights)
– NE (4-5-1 or 4-2-2-1-1): Preston Burpo; Kevin Alston RB, Cory Gibbs CB, Darrius Barnes CB, Seth Sinovic LB (Zak “No, not Wade” Boggs 82); Pat Phelan DM, Joseph Niouky DM, Sainey Nyassi RM (Kheli Dube 67), Chris Tierney LM; Marko Perovic AM, Zach Schilawski F (Kenny Mansally 85)
– SJ (4-4-2): Joe Cannon; Steve Beitashour RB, Ike Opara CB, Jason Hernandez CB, Ramiro Corrales LB; Joey Gjertsen RM, Brandon McDonald CM, Andre Luiz CM, Bobby Convey LM; Ryan Johnson F (Ramon Sanchez 92), Chris Wondolowski F
– Darrius Barnes, ever-present as a rookie last year, returned from injury. But the Revs were still without Shalrie Joseph.
– San Jose standouts: Terrific work by Ryan Johnson on the first goal, then a late series of saves from Joe Cannon.

New York 2, Dallas 1 (highlights)
– NY (4-4-2): Bouna Coundoul; Jeremy Hall RB, Mike Petke CB, Tim Ream CB, Roy Miller LB; Dane Richards RM (Sinisa Ubiparipovic 81), Seth Stammler CM (Carl Robinson 58), Joel Lindpere CM, Mac Kandji LM; Juan Pablo Angel F, Salou Ibrahim F (Danleigh Borman 71)
– Dal (4-1-4-1): Dario Sala; Zach Loyd RB, George John CB, Ugo Ihemelu CB, Heath Pearce LB (Eric Avila 69); Daniel Hernandez DM; Atiba Harris RM, David Ferreira CM, Dax McCarty CM (Eric Alexander 81), Jair Benitez LM; Jeff Cunningham F
– OK, New York — where’s the crowd? You don’t have Giants Stadium and its cavernous atmosphere, controversial security and lack of mass transit to blame any more.
– MLSSoccer’s anonymous recapper did not enjoy the game. And yet the highlights are 9 minutes long. Especially cruel in the editing — a Mike Petke blunder is immediately followed by a scene in which the electronic dasher boards read “Follow Mike Petke on Twitter.”
– Comeback player of the week is Bouna Coundoul, who shook off a blunder last week to snap right back into his terrific early-season form. (HT: Bill Archer)

D.C. United 0, Chicago 2 (highlights)
– Chicago (4-2-3-1): Andrew Dykstra; Dasan Robinson RB, C.J. Brown CB, Wilman Conde CB, Krzysztof Krol LB; Peter Lowry DM, Baggio Husidic DM, Patrick Nyarko RM, Marco Pappa AM, Justin Mapp LM; Collins John F
– D.C. (4-4-2): Troy Perkins; Carey Talley RB, Devon McTavish CB, Julius James CB, Rodney Wallace LB; Kurt Morsink DM, Santino Quaranta RM, Jaime Moreno AM, Andy Najar LM; Chris Pontius F, Danny Allsopp F
– Already went in-depth on the clinching goal and got some comments from Santino Quaranta (not the ones you’ve seen elsewhere).

And from Sunday …

Colorado 3, Toronto 1 (recap/goal highlights)
– Colo: Matt Pickens; Kosuke Kimura RB, Marvell Wynne CB, Drew Moor CB, Danny Earls LB (Scott Palguta 83); Jamie Smith RM (Wells Thompson 59), Pablo Mastroeni CM, Jeff Larentowicz CM, Colin Clark LM (Quincy Amarikwa 68); Omar Cummings F, Conor Casey F
– TFC: Stefan Frei; Maksim Usanov RB, Nana Attakora CB, Adrian Cann CB, Ty Harden LB; Sam Cronin RM, Julian de Guzman CM, Martin Saric CM (Dan Gargan 80), Nick LaBrocca LM (Jacob Peterson 60); Dwayne De Rosario F, Chad Barrett F (O’Brian White 66)
– Three PKs in this one. The first was, well, wrong. Adrian Cann, who played briefly for Colorado before a long trip through the USL and Scandinavia before TFC signed him a few days ago, was judged to have … handled the ball? Failed to slide safely into second base? Conor Casey then went for the smart-ass chip over the sprawling keeper, and he got a little lucky with the timing. The other calls and shots were much better.
– The non-PK was a Colorado free kick in which Jeff Larentowicz drilled the ball through a hole in the wall vacated by the sideways-jumping Julian de Guzman.
– Match Tracker isn’t showing a single TFC shot from inside the 18-yard box. Stats show six saves for Frei, zero for Pickens. The broadcast crew chose a highlight of Pickens tipping a cross away as the “Save of the Game.”

So if we look at the bottom eight teams in the league, we can give half of those teams a break. Salt Lake is playing pretty well against good teams. Columbus has only played two games. Chicago just has one bad loss at home. Dallas has played a couple of thrillers.

That leaves the following teams making a collective argument — with the usual “Yes, it’s only Week 4” disclaimer — that MLS isn’t really a league of parity:

– Philadelphia: Not easy to build an expansion team, though you have to wonder when they’ll lose the “physical” side of the game and just play.

– Chivas USA: A couple of injuries have made it tougher to replace the lost veteran leadership of Jesse Marsch et al.

– D.C. United: Three years of poor player acquisitions will take a toll on the roster. To be fair, the injury bug hasn’t helped — Bryan Namoff and Clyde Simms alone would make this team more solid, though it’s hard to see where the goals will come from.

– Toronto: Maybe they should get some players who weren’t cast aside by Skonto Riga.