Part of the way up the first-base line, Ian Happ pointed across the diamond at Vidal Brujan, who was rounding third and heading home. Happ already knew how the game was going to end.
‘‘You hit that ball, you know he’s going to score,’’ Happ said after the Cubs’ 11-10 victory in 10 innings Tuesday against the Dodgers. ‘‘It’s on the ground the whole way, so he got a good break. The guy flies. It was guaranteed he was going to make it.’’
Happ delivered the winning hit, a ground ball through the right side of the infield, to cap a dramatic back-and-forth with the Cubs’ first walk-off victory of the season.
‘‘First-base coach [Jose Javier] was yelling at me to get to second,’’ Happ said. ‘‘I was too excited.’’
His teammates streamed out of the dugout and met him at first.
‘‘It’s a really good group,’’ Happ said. ‘‘Good guys. They work really hard. We all care about each other. And so to have that’s really cool. And a really cool moment at Wrigley.’’
The game featured three comebacks. The first came from the Cubs, who wiped away the Dodgers’ three-run lead in the first with a five-run rally in the bottom of the inning.
The second came from the Dodgers, who authored a five-run rally in the seventh to take a 10-7 lead
The third came from the Cubs, who punched back with a two-run home run by Kyle Tucker in the eighth that cut their deficit to 10-9 and set the stage for Miguel Amaya to deliver a tying solo homer in the ninth to send the game to extra innings.
The Cubs improved to 3-3 against the Dodgers this season with one more game to play on Wednesday.
‘‘We’ve played some good teams, but we’ve been consistent against everybody,’’ Happ said. ‘‘No matter the opponent, the ability to stay in games, offense scoring runs late, adding on, doing our job, we’ve done it against everybody and continue to do that.’’
Dodgers go long vs. Imanaga
All five runs Cubs left-hander Shota Imanaga allowed came on homers: a three-run blast by Tommy Edman in the first, a solo shot by Andy Pages in the second and a solo blast by Will Smith in the sixth. The three homers allowed were a season high for Imanaga and matched his career high.
Three of the five runs were considered unearned because of an error by third baseman Gage Workman on the first play of the game. He muffed a one-hopper off the bat of Shohei Ohtani, and Edman eventually homered with two outs.
Imanaga threw a season-high 101 pitches. He only had reached the 100-pitch mark three other times in his major-league career.
Assad exits rehab start
Cubs right-hander Javier Assad left his rehab start with Triple-A Iowa after four innings Tuesday. According to Iowa broadcaster Jason Kempf, Assad grabbed his side while warming up for the fifth inning and left the field.
Assad, who has been on the injured list all season after straining his left oblique leading up to spring training, was two starts into his rehab assignment. The Cubs frequently have mentioned him as part of their plan to weather the loss of left-hander Justin Steele to season-ending surgery on his pitching arm.
