Alonso HR, Rutschman's 3 RBIs carry Orioles past Mariners 7-5

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Alonso HR, Rutschman's 3 RBIs carry Orioles past Mariners 7-5

2026-06-12 10:03 Last Updated At：10:21

BALTIMORE (AP) — Pete Alonso homered to cap a six-run third inning against Bryan Woo, and the Baltimore Orioles withstood three homers by the Seattle Mariners in a 7-5 victory Thursday night.

Adley Rutschman drove in three runs and Colton Cowser hit a solo shot to help the Orioles salvage a split of the four-game series with the AL West-leading Mariners.

Cole Young, Luke Raley and Dominic Canzone homered for Seattle. All three drives were off Kyle Bradish, who hadn't given up more than two homers in his previous 80 major league starts.

Bradish lasted only four innings. He was replaced by Tyler Wells (1-1), who pitched three hitless innings.

Grant Wolfram retired Colt Emerson with two on and two outs in the eighth, and Andrew Kittredge worked the ninth for his first save.

Young started the slugfest by hitting the third pitch of the game over the right-field wall, his first career leadoff homer.

Woo (5-5) retired the first six Baltimore batters before Cowser went deep leading off the third. After Woo let in a run with a bases-loaded wild pitch, Rutschman hit a two-run double and Alonso sent Woo's next pitch deep into the left-field seats for a 6-1 lead.

Raley hit his 14th homer after Randy Arozarena drew a leadoff walk in the fourth, and Canzone followed with a shot to right. It was the first time this season that Seattle hit back-to-back home runs.

Julio Rodriguez tacked on an RBI single to get Seattle to 6-5, but Rutschman countered with a run-scoring single in the fifth.

The Mariners take a short trip south to Washington, where Bryce Miller (2-0, 1.33 ERA) faces the Nationals on Friday night.

The Orioles host San Diego and former teammate Manny Machado on Friday night.

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Supreme Court rejects Alabama request for nitrogen gas execution

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man facing the death penalty by nitrogen gas was spared Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court ruling that found the method is unconstitutionally cruel, issuing a brief order that came well after the hour originally planned to initiate Jeffery Lee’s execution.

The justices decided not to lift an injunction blocking Alabama from carrying out what would have been the nation’s ninth execution by nitrogen gas, rejecting a last-minute legal battle by the state as it sought to carry out the sentence in the evening. A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections said the execution was off for the evening and the state would not try another method.

The high court voted 6-3 and did not explain its reasoning. Three of the conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — said they would grant Alabama’s request to lift the injunction and let the execution go forward.

“While I am disappointed the Supreme Court did not allow the state to proceed with Lee’s chosen method of execution, I remain committed to ensuring that justice is ultimately served for his victims,” Gov. Kay Ivey said.

In a statement the legal team for Lee, 49, hailed the decision and noted that his jury had voted for a sentence of life, which a judge overruled.

“His jury voted for life. Two courts ruled the method unconstitutional. Today, the Constitution prevailed,” the statement said. “Now Governor Ivey can finish what the jury started: restore the jury’s verdict of life without parole.”

The ruling was at least a temporary, rare victory for opponents of capital punishment in a state that has had one of the busiest death chambers in the country. And it capped an extraordinary legal back-and-forth over the humaneness of nitrogen gas as an execution method.

Lee filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s protocol as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and U.S. District Judge Emily Marks ruled the method constitutional in May.

But a three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her decision Monday, saying the three minutes it could take for an inmate to lose awareness is an “intolerable” time frame “given the suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.”

Marks reevaluated the case and ruled again Tuesday saying Lee had shown “that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” The state appealed to the Supreme Court.

“If that ruling stands, it would be unprecedented in American history. Not only does it portend the first-ever permanent ban on a legislatively enacted method, but it would expand the concept of cruelty well beyond the bounds of the Eighth Amendment,” lawyers with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office wrote.

Lee’s lawyers asked the high court to keep the execution on hold, saying in a response that Alabama was asking it to intervene at the eleventh hour “to allow an execution that has been found unconstitutional to proceed.”

Prison officials said Lee did not request a final meal Thursday but had potato chips, Skittles, water and a Sprite in the hours ahead of his possible execution.

Marks did not block the state from executing Lee with one of the other approved methods, the electric chair or lethal injection. It is unclear how quickly the state could switch, however.

Alabama began using nitrogen gas to carry out some executions in 2024. The method involves strapping a respirator to a person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen.

Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States — seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee was scheduled to be the ninth.

During the previous Alabama nitrogen executions, the inmates shook, pulled at the restraints and exhibited labored breathing. During the state’s last execution by nitrogen gas, 30 minutes elapsed between Anthony Boyd exhibiting signs of being impacted by the gas and state officials closing the curtain to the viewing room to signal the execution was complete.

The state has maintained that the method is constitutional and causes no more suffering than other execution methods.

Lee, who is currently housed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, was convicted of two counts of capital murder for killing Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson while robbing a pawnshop on Dec. 12, 1998.

Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, the owner, and Thompson, an employee.

A jury voted 7-5 to give Lee a sentence of life imprisonment. However a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death.

Alabama ended the practice of judicial override in 2017 and no longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.

Bestselling author John Grisham called on Gov. Ivey to honor the jury's decision and commute Lee's sentence to life without parole.

“The practice of a judge overriding a jury was declared unconstitutional and so indefensible that Alabama itself abolished it in 2017,” Grisham said in a statement. “Jeffery Lee’s jury made its decision, the Alabama Legislature later agreed that juries, not judges, should decide life or death sentences.”