Red Bulls game starts important stretch

The Philadelphia Union are in the midst of six games in 21 days, but the more pressing ministreak within that span isn’t quite as time-crunched.

The next three weekends, starting with the New York Red Bulls’ visit to Talen Energy Stadium Sunday (5 p.m., ESPN), the Union will host Eastern Conference opposition at home. They’ll have the chance over three straight weeks to tangle head-to-head in six-point contests with the teams that project as direct competitors for the East’s six playoff spots. To augment the significance, this trio of games will bring the Union to the halfway point of the 17-game MLS season.

The Union (4-6-4, 16 points) sit 10th in the East. The teams set to blow into town are positioned sixth (Red Bulls), seventh (New England) and 11th (D.C. United) in the conference. MLS is a league

where points can be accumulated in bunches, as the Union showed once this season, and the schedule presents the club a chance to do so once again.

There’s also punitive pressure for the Union to start whittling into the four points separating them and the Red Bulls for the sixth and final spot above the red line. By the end of the homestand, the Union will have played 10 of their 17 home dates. The math also sets up nicely: If you figure 45 points to be the minimum the Union would need to make the postseason, then sitting at 23 after this stretch would be a decent situation. Getting there would require two wins and a draw.

For their myriad home struggles the last few seasons, the Union have won three straight at Talen, plus Wednesday’s comfortable 3-1 decision against Harrisburg City in the fourth round of the U.S. Open Cup. New York (6-7-2, 20 points) falls at the other end of the spectrum with just one win in seven road outings; the Red Bulls and Revolution have the lowest return of points from road games in 2017 at three apiece.

“They’ve had road struggles that they’ve mentioned, so they’re going to want to put on a very good performance in our building,” manager Jim Curtin said Friday. “They’ve stressed all week improving on the road. … But at the same time, we know how dangerous they are.”

The Union contributed to the Red Bulls’ road woes, with the rivals serving as the slump-buster May 6, a 3-0 catharsis to snap 16 games without a win in all competitions.

The Union remain shorthanded in central midfield for this meeting, with Warren Creavalle and Alejandro Bedoya both shy of full training with hamstring strains that have them listed as questionable. Fabian Herbers remains out with his adductor strain.

Andre Blake returns from international duty with Jamaica to assume his spot in goal for a rivalry tilt that carries added implications with the teams drawn together in the fifth round of the Open Cup in Harrison in 10 days.

“There’s animosity, for sure, between the fan bases,” Curtin said. “There’s familiarity, we’ll say, between the coaching staffs. We know each other, we want to beat each other, everyone’s very competitive within that group. … They want to win. We want to win. I like to think we have a group that’s cut from the same cloth that wants to win and show that you have the upper hand.”