MILWAUKEE (AP) — Adley Rutschman hit a three-run homer to highlight Baltimore's four-run outburst in the 11th inning as the Orioles snapped an eight-game skid by beating the Milwaukee Brewers 8-4 on Wednesday.
Baltimore ended its longest losing streak since August 2021, when it dropped 19 straight games. Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino earned his first win in his fifth game since taking over for Brandon Hyde, who was fired Saturday.
Milwaukee had tied the game on Caleb Durbin’s two-out RBI single in the ninth against Félix Bautista, who was pitching on back-to-back days for the first time this year after missing the 2024 season due to Tommy John surgery.
After Baltimore’s Ryan O’Hearn and Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio hit RBI singles in the 10th, the Orioles broke through against Tyler Alexander (2-4) in the 11th.
Automatic runner Heston Kjerstad advanced to third on Ramón Urías' infield single and scored on Jackson Holliday's single to center. Rutschman followed with a drive over the left-field wall.
Seranthony Domínguez retired the side in order in the bottom of the 11th. Bryan Baker (3-0) allowed one run in the 10th and picked up the win.
O'Hearn went 4 for 6 and drove in two runs. Baltimore's Gunnar Henderson scored three runs. Rhys Hoskins homered for Milwaukee.
Although the Brewers eventually lost, they produced one of the more exciting plays of the season with some daring baserunning in the fifth inning. Durbin led off with a double After Joey Ortiz popped out on a bunt, Durbin took off for third in a stolen base attempt just as Brice Turang hit a dribbler about halfway up the first-base line. As the Orioles threw out Turang at first, Durbin kept on running and slid home safely.
Rutschman's homer made him 4 for 8 against Alexander in his career.
The Orioles start a four-game series at Boston. Thursday's scheduled pitchers are Cade Povich (1-3, 5.23 ERA) for Baltimore and Lucas Giolito (1-1, 7.08) for Boston.
The Brewers open a four-game series at Pittsburgh. Mike Burrows (0-0, 0.00) pitches for the Pirates on Thursday. The Brewers haven't announced a starter.
This story has been corrected to remove an erroneous reference to Seranthony Domínguez earning a save.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
Baltimore Orioles' Heston Kjerstad watches his run-scoring double against the Milwaukee Brewers during the eighth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
Milwaukee Brewers' Caleb Durbin scores ahead of the the tag by Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
Baltimore Orioles' Adley Rutschman (35) reacts after scoring on his three-run home run during the 11th inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.
West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.
The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.
Decisions are expected by early summer.
President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.
“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”
She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.
Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.
She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.
Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.
“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.
Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.
The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.
"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”
But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.
“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”
Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”
“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.
One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.
Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”
The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.
The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.
The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.
The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.
If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.
“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)
