In four of their last five games, the Red Bulls have given away a penalty kick, suffering maddening lapses in concentration that have cost them points. Shorthanded and starting a four-game Western road swing, it’s a defensive malaise they need to fix starting Sunday in Portland.

“Very rarely do you get a season where you face four penalties. In a season you may get two or three or four. Very rarely do you get that many in that span of games,’’ said keeper Greg Sutton. “That’s why I say it’s as freakish thing that’s occurred. Hopefully it’s something that can be prevented.’’

The 34-year-old keeper Greg Sutton couldn’t recall ever going through such a penalty-filled stretch in his career. The team record for penalties conceded in a season was 10 in a 32-game schedule 2000, with eight of those converted; and they saw six-of-eight converted in 1997. With four already conceeded just 14 dates into a 34-game slate, those are numbers they do not want to _ and cannot afford to _ challenge this year. 

“Positionally we’ve got some things that we struggled with,’’ said Sutton. “But saying that, we’ve given up a couple penalty kicks when we had our first-team guys in there, so we can’t say it’s a first-team, second-team difference or anything like that. It’s just one of those weird things, the way the ball’s been bouncing.

“It’s just one of those things (where we’ve been) unlucky. Hopefully now we can get some of that fortune on our side. But it gives us an opportunity to use this as education. That’s what we’ve been doing over the last few days, few weeks, try to figure the reasons why we’ve been putting ourselves in these positions. Hopefully it’ll pay off for us, and give us a little bit of an education, and make us stronger.’’

Sutton actually saved a pair of penalties, diving to his left to stop Shalrie Joseph in the 34th minute of last Friday’s 2-1 win over New England, and also stopping Jeff Larentowicz’ 27th-minute penalty kick on May 25 against Colorado, only to see the Rapids midfielder tap in the rebound during what would become a 1-1 tie.

“It was massive for momentum. We’d started very well, and we couldn’t score. After 12 minutes we had four phenomenal chances, and then bang, penalty. You expect to be one-down, and the save of course lifts everyone’s confidence,’’ coach Hans Backe said of Friday’s save. “We get a new chance, a feeling we’re back in the game, we saved a penalty, it’s a tie. It’s so, so important.’’

Sutton’s dramatic save against Joseph last Friday seemed to spark for the Red Bulls, who scored three minutes later and went on to snap a six-game winless skid.

“That gave us even more momentum,’’ Sutton said. “I was even more happy when we were able to score a couple minutes after that, and we had momentum. It gave us a little bit of a boost. I thought the crowd was pretty loud after that, and they got even more excited when we were able to score.

“It gets guys going. You’re given another opportunity to get the lead in this game and not have to come back. It gives guys a little boost.’’

But it’s a boost they’d prefer not to need.

“In my career, I don’t remember (seeing this many penalties),’’ said left back Roy Miller. “But that’s how football is sometimes. Sometimes (you make mistakes), and sometimes it’s the referees not making the right call. That’s just the way it is.’’

Both Sutton and Backe said the team has just made some individual mistakes with positioning, and been made to pay for them in the form of penalties.

“I have no idea why,’’ Backe said. “If you look at the game, the last one you can see both centerbacks stayed in a marking position, not a zone play. In a zone play you slide with your back four and just cover space. Suddenly the centerbacks started standing on each striker, so there was a huge gap between them. It was easy to play final passes in, and that was the one that cost us the penalty.

“If we’d just slid and covered space, I think probably it would’ve been Roy picking up the guy. It’s small individual mistakes. But I’m not blaming these guys, because they haven’t been playing competitive games. We just need to practice, as we did (this week) with the back four. That’s a good sign that we have all four players in the back four ready for sessions; we can train every day against crosses.’’

While centerbacks Tim Ream and Rafa Marquez are away with the U.S. and Mexican National Teams respectively for the Gold Cup, at least the injury bug that’s hit the Red Bulls has largely spared the defense. They’re hoping the practice time together can increase cohesion, and decrease penalty-causing gaffes.

In keeping with that continuity, Backe seems likely to keep Sutton in goal for the time being. He acknowledges that Bouna Coundoul _ who set a club record with 11 clean sheets last season _ has been running neck-and-neck with Sutton in practice, but says he can’t see pulling the veteran Canadian while he’s playing this well.

“I can’t say (one is better). They’re so even,’’ said Backe. “They’re different types of goalies. That’s probably one of the first times since I’ve been coaching I have two goalies who are so even.’’