CHICAGO — Tuesday night epitomized what much of this young season has felt like for the Dodgers.

Momentum would build, then vanish. Right when they finally seemed to kick into top gear, they instead slipped frustratingly back into reverse.

Despite leading by three runs in the first inning, then three again entering the eighth, the Dodgers couldn’t hold on in a wild 11-10, extra-innings loss to the Chicago Cubs, getting outplayed — or, at the very least, outslugged — on a night a wind blowing out turned Wrigley Field into a band box.

Tanner Scott blew a save with two out in the ninth, when Miguel Amaya tied the score on a solo home run to center. The Dodgers couldn’t answer in the top of the 10th, and Ian Happ walked it off with an RBI single on the first pitch of the bottom half of the inning.

“We were one out away,” manager Dave Roberts said from a somber postgame clubhouse. “We just couldn’t put them away.”

The challenge now: making sure the season’s most disheartening defeat doesn’t spiral something into something extended.

Granted, the Dodgers are still 16-8. They still have the third-best record in the majors. They still possess very few legitimate long-term concerns in their pursuit of a second straight World Series title.

But for now, a team of supreme talent is not clicking on all cylinders.

Even on a night the Dodgers scored a season high in runs, their overall play remained far from top form.

In the first inning Tommy Edman opened the scoring with a three-run home run — only for pitcher Dustin May to immediately yield a five-spot in the bottom half of the frame.

The Dodgers responded with solo homers from Andy Pages and Will Smith in the second and sixth innings, respectively — yet watched May give those runs back too, when he threw a center-cut fastball to Pete Crow-Armstrong in the fifth that the Harvard-Westlake product launched for a two-run blast.

“Nothing was very good today,” said May, who was victimized by both mistakes over the plate and an inability to locate his signature sweeper for strikes.

“He just couldn’t put guys away when he had a chance to,” Roberts added.

Over the final few innings, the same thing applied to his team.

The Dodgers briefly surged back in front with a five-run rally in the seventh. One run scored on an error. Two came home on Freddie Freeman’s go-ahead double. Two more were plated on a sacrifice fly from Edman and an off-the-wall double from Smith.

“I’ve played a lot of crazy games at Wrigley over the years, especially when the wind is blowing out like it was today,” Edman said. “It’s kind of the expectation when you come in.”

But what the Dodgers didn’t expect, after turning a 10-7 lead over to their typically stout bullpen, was to face-plant the way they did down the stretch.

Kyle Tucker took Alex Vesia deep in the eighth for a two-run homer. Scott suffered his second blown save in 10 opportunities by leaving a fastball down the middle to Amaya in the ninth, watching the blast carry just far enough to find Wrigley Field’s outfield basket in center.

“Just missed location,” Scott said. “Middle-middle is not very good in the big leagues.”

In the 10th, the Dodgers moved their automatic runner to third but no further.

Despite their season-high scoring output, they finished the game just three for 14 with runners in scoring position.

“Some guys had some big nights, which was great,” Roberts said. “But there’s still some things situationally [where] I just didn’t think we had good at-bats.”

However, Roberts countered, “we still put up 10 runs. We’ve gotta win that ballgame.”