Slumping Galaxy to Give Hartman a Shot

Mired in a three-game losing streak for the first time in his professional coaching career, Sigi Schmid is shuffling his lineup for today’s game against the Chicago Fire in hopes of lighting a fire under the Galaxy.

Kevin Hartman will replace Matt Reis and start in goal, not only for today’s game, but also for the foreseeable future.

“I think it’s a situation where the competition between Kevin and Matt is very close,” Schmid said. “And you have a situation now where Matt has given up eight goals in the past three games, not that the eight goals are his fault because it’s a combined effort ... but the competition’s so close that you’ve got to give Kevin an opportunity to play. He’s a quality goalkeeper.

“If the difference between our goalkeepers were like [Chicago goalkeepers] Zack Thornton and Henry Ring, well then you just keep going with the guy you’ve been going with. But with us it’s a different situation.”

Hartman, 28, started the season as Major League Soccer’s all-time goalkeeping leader with a 1.12 goals-against-average, and was second all-time with 32 shutouts. But off-season surgery in November to repair a broken right wrist slowed him during training camp and Reis won the starting job.

Reis, 27, was making a name for himself early on as his 0.79 GAA was third among MLS goalkeepers and, with a record of 4-0-2, he was the lone keeper to have played at least 150 minutes and not lost. Then came the Galaxy’s three-game free-fall to close out its franchise-record five-game trip.

Hartman has started one MLS game for the Galaxy this season, a 1-0 overtime loss to Colorado on April 27, and was in the net for the Galaxy’s two international exhibition victories over CSD Municipal of Guatemala, 2-1, and Aguila of El Salvador, 3-0.

Sitting on the sidelines most of the time, though, has been trying for Hartman, the 1999 MLS goalkeeper of the year.

“I try to be as unemotional about it as I can,” he said. “I want to be playing the best soccer that I can.”