NEW YORK — Sal Frelick raced back as Anthony Volpe hit a deep drive to right field and was fully aware of the short porch along with the larger Joey Wiemer charging in his direction from center field.
The rookie’s intent was to extend the game and keep a historic no-hit bid alive for the Milwaukee Brewers, even if it meant a collision.
Frelick was able to keep the New York Yankees hitless and the game scoreless with his leaping, backhand catch in the 10th inning, but New York rallied to beat the Brewers 4-3 on Sunday when Giancarlo Stanton hit a tying, two-run homer in the 12th and Kyle Higashioka hit a winning double in the 13th.
After Corbin Burnes pitched eight hitless innings and Devin Williams worked a 1-2-3 ninth, the Yankees had two on in the 10th against Abner Uribe. Volpe hit a drive and Frelick made a lights-out catch — he knocked out the lights on the videoboard attached to the wall.
“Obviously the short porch in right there so you know the wall’s going to come into play at some point,” Frelick said. “At that point in the game, it’s just the ball’s up in the air. You got to go out full speed and catch it before you get over the wall.”
He leaped against the wall and caught the ball as he elbowed Wiemer, who suffered a bloody lip and a cut to the inside of his mouth.
“That’s the catch you want to make to win and finish it off with a great play like that,” Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said. “It was a heck of a play. To keep playing like that after a play like that is incredible.”
Tyrone Taylor hit a run-scoring single in the 11th off Nick Ramirez and, with Milwaukee two outs from the first 11-inning no-hitter in major league history, Oswaldo Cabrera pulled a tying RBI double down the right-field line with one out off Joel Payamps.
Wiemer had an RBI double and Andrew Monasterio a sacrifice fly against Ramirez in the 12th, but Stanton homered off Andrew Chafin in the bottom half and Higashioka doubled in the 13th to win it.
The drive off Hoby Milner (2-1) went over Taylor, landed on the left-field warning track and scored automatic runner Everson Pereira for Higashioka’s first career walk-off hit.
“To me personally it means the world,” Higashioka said. New York won despite being held to three hits or fewer for the 16th time this season, matching the 1913 team for the most in Yankees history.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, this was the fourth time a team was no-hit into the 11th and won — and the first since the Mets did it on June 14, 1965, at Cincinnati.
“Burnes was excellent,” New York manager Aaron Boone said. “He maybe made a couple of mistakes where I thought we got some pitches to do some things with, but for the most part he was living on the edges.”
Anthony Misiewicz (2-0) pitched around a walk in a hitless 13th, combining with Gerrit Cole, Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Ramirez on a six-hitter. New York ended a streak of seven straight extra-inning losses, one shy of the team record.
Burnes struck out seven and walked two in eight innings, throwing 109 pitches — one shy of his season high and six short of his career high.
“Once you’re out of the game, you can’t control it and you got to trust the guys that are out there,” Burnes said.
The 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner retired his first 12 hitters before walking Stanton on his 54th pitch.
Burnes, a 28-year-old right-hander, has never thrown a complete game in 103 big league starts.
“We lost and we didn’t finish the no-hitter,” Burnes said.
Cole allowed three hits in seven innings, lowering his AL-leading ERA to 2.79. He struck out nine and walked none, and with 204 strikeouts became the first Yankees pitcher with three 200-strikeout seasons.