Hand it to Felipe Mora, he did let Jonathan Rodriguez have a moment at the top.

Coming into Saturday’s matchup against the Vancouver Whitecaps, the two Portland Timbers forwards were neck and neck for the team’s Golden Boot race, with Mora’s eight goals tied with Evander for the club lead. Rodriguez, who missed the season’s first month, came in a goal off the pace at seven.

He didn’t stay there long.

Rodriguez’s goal in the 26th minute against Vancouver didn’t just bring him even with his two teammates in the club’s scoring race, it was also the only goal Portland needed as James Pantemis picked up his third clean sheet of the year.

It wasn’t, however, the only goal Portland scored.

Portland won the match 2-0 for the team’s second consecutive victory, a win capped by Mora taking the team scoring lead right back with a nifty goal through traffic in the 43rd minute. With 25 goals between Mora, Rodriguez and Evander, Portland is the only team in MLS this season with at least three players who have scored eight goals or more.

“I think it’s normal to have the transition at the beginning with new teammates,” said Rodriguez, who spoke with reporters postgame for the first time since joining the club on March 20. “We’ve been working really hard on connecting with each other and I’m happy that you can see that now during the matches.”

For one of the first times this season, Portland looked like the loaded side.

In Portland’s most dominant win of the year, the Timbers (8-7-6, 27 points) outshot Vancouver 7-1, controlled possession for 58% of the match and played with far greater discipline than a Vancouver side that tallied 10 fouls and three yellow cards.

And unlike an earlier meeting this season, when Portland scored two goals in the second half to tie the Whitecaps only to lose the match in the 87th minute, there was little drama in this second half.

A second yellow card sent off Vancouver’s Alessandro Schopf in the 52nd minute, allowing the Timbers to play the rest of the half a man up and cruise to their sixth consecutive decision with points.

The win wasn’t perfect. Portland coach Phil Neville thought the second half was long and labored, with his Timbers having occasional lapses that allowed Vancouver to pressure more than a team down a player should.

He thought the score should have been three or four to nothing, which frustrated him. What didn’t frustrate him, however, is that the potential for a blowout was there.

“These are games where you got to be really ruthless,” Neville said. “That’s what the best teams do. Look at the best team in the Western Conference the last few years, LAFC, they would have won that by four today. That’s the next step for this team.”

Since snapping a nine-game winless streak on May 15 against San Jose, the Timbers have taken points in seven of eight games, securing 15 of a possible 24 points in that span.

The Timbers won again despite missing three players on Copa America rosters. Keeper Maxime Crepeau and center back Kamal Miller are playing for Canada. Defender Miguel Araujo is playing for Peru. The two teams face each other on Tuesday in Group A play.

“The mentality has changed,” Rodriguez said. “At the beginning (of the season) we conceded a lot of goals — more than we wanted — and we just started working hard to score more goals and keep the clean sheets. Just working on that and trying to reflect that on the field.”

Next up: The Timbers host Minnesota next Saturday at Providence Park.

-- Tyson Alger for The Oregonian/OregonLive