After being no-hit for 10 innings, Yankees beat Brewers in 13th on Kyle Higashioka's walk-off double

Gerrit Cole was as good as he’s been this season on Sunday afternoon, a high bar for the righthander, who has emerged as the favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award.

But after allowing three hits and striking out nine in seven scoreless innings, the best the Yankees’ ace could get was a no-decision.

That’s because Brewers righthander Corbin Burnes was about as good as any pitcher can be, holding the Yankees hitless through eight innings and having his opportunity to pitch a no-hitter denied only because he had thrown a season-high 109 pitches.

But nearly two hours later, the Yankees sent a Stadium crowd of 41,702 — and certainly Cole — home happy. They wound up with only three hits, but they made them count.

Oswaldo Cabrera delivered their first hit, a tying RBI double with one out in the 11th. Giancarlo Stanton came through with their second, a tying two-run homer in the 12th. And

Kyle Higashioka produced their third, a long walk-off double to leftfield in the 13th that gave the Yankees a 4-3 victory.

It was the first walk-off hit of Higashioka’s major-league career.

“To me personally, it means the world,” he said. “Something every player goes for. But the more important thing is we gave ourselves a chance to win today. We faced a tough pitcher early and we still didn’t give up and we battled through it.”

The game-winner came after lefthander Anthony Misiewicz, a pitcher known only to the hardest of hardcore Yankees fans, pitched a scoreless top of the 13th to earn the win in his first MLB appearance of 2023. He was called up earlier in the day from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

“That was special,” said a smiling Cole, who lowered his ERA to an AL-low 2.79. “I just met him right before the game, shook his hand on the way to the gym. He said hello and that was that.”

The Yankees nearly picked up their first hit and a walk-off victory with two outs in the 10th, but rightfielder Sal Frelick made a spectacular leaping backhand catch of Anthony Volpe’s drive at the wall. He held on to the ball despite simultaneously hitting the wall and centerfielder Joey Wiemer, elbowing Wiemer in the mouth and leaving him bloodied.

The Brewers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 11th on Tyrone Taylor’s RBI single off lefthander Nick Ramirez, but Cabrera roped an RBI double into the corner in right off righty Joel Payamps in the bottom half to tie it.

The Brewers scored two more against Ramirez in the 12th on Wiemer’s RBI double and Andruw Monasterio’s sacrifice fly, but Stanton stepped into a 1-and-2 slider from lefthander Andrew Chafin and launched it 419 feet into the Yankees’ bullpen in right-center to tie it at 3-3.

The wildness of the latter innings was almost enough to overshadow the brilliance of both starters. Cole, without a Cy Young Award in what has been a distinguished career, threw 106 pitches, 72 strikes. Sunday marked the 23rd time in 30 starts this season that he’s allowed two or fewer runs, but he has gotten a no-decision in 10 of the 23.

His strikeout of Monasterio to start the fifth gave him 200 strikeouts this season, the sixth time he’s reached that plateau in his career, three times with the Yankees. He became the first Yankee to record at least 200 strikeouts in three different seasons.

Burnes, just 9-8 entering the day but with a 3.63 ERA, walked two and allowed one runner to reach second. Of his 109 pitches, 70 were strikes.

“They tend to bring out the highest, best competitor of yourself,” Cole said of engaging in that kind of pitchers’ duel. “Corbin was obviously on his game very much so today, one of the best pitchers in the world. So as a fellow pitcher, you definitely respect that type of effort. It was a well-pitched ballgame.”