CLEVELAND -- Spotting early leads to the opposing team is generally not conducive to winning many ballgames. However, the A’s found themselves down early in each of their past two games, only to show some impressive displays of resiliency.

For the second night in a row Wednesday, the A’s trailed the Indians for most of the contest before storming back in the late innings. Also for the second straight night, Jed Lowrie came away the hero, his eighth-inning three-run blast breaking a tie and putting the A’s ahead for good in a 6-3 victory at Progressive Field.

The win was Oakland’s sixth in a row and 10th in its last 12 games, as the club maintained its grasp of the top American League Wild Card spot while only trailing Houston by two games for first place in the AL West.

That the final clutch hit came from Lowrie, who also produced the game-winning hit on Tuesday with a go-ahead double in the 10th, should come as no surprise. Entering the day, the veteran second baseman’s .370 batting average with runners in scoring position this season ranked second in the Majors among hitters with at least 90 at-bats in such situations, trailing only Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.373).

"Jed’s been doing it all year,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He might be tops in the American League with runners in scoring position. Even when he has games where he might not be swinging great, he shows up late in the game with big at-bats, none bigger than today.

“He’s been pretty consistent with that. It’s pretty remarkable what he’s done this year for a guy that basically took two years off.”

Lowrie’s three-run homer -- which was scorched 103.8 mph and traveled well up the right-field seats at a projected 392 feet, per Statcast -- capped what was a four-run inning for the A’s. Elvis Andrus led off the eighth with a shot to left, marking the first multi-homer inning turned in by the A’s since the third inning of an Aug. 1 win over the Angels at Angel Stadium.

After injuries limited him to just nine games with the Mets in 2019-20, Lowrie is going through a resurgent 2021 campaign, continuing on Wednesday with his 13th homer of the season.

With his best work coming in clutch situations, the 37-year-old said his strong RISP numbers are likely the product of an approach at the plate he’s molded over his 13 big league seasons.

“I guess it forces you to really know who you are as a hitter and look for a pitch to handle,” Lowrie said of hitting with runners in scoring position. “Maybe you have to have a little bit tighter focus. But I don’t think the approach changes.”

The late offensive outburst followed what was an early struggle at the plate. A’s hitters collected just two hits -- a pair of infield singles -- and no runs through six innings against Cleveland starter Cal Quantrill.

It wasn’t until Quantrill was pulled with no outs in the seventh after issuing a leadoff walk to Lowrie and a single to Yan Gomes that the A’s did their damage, ultimately tying the game later in the two-run inning against Cleveland’s bullpen on an RBI single by Matt Chapman.

“We expect it to happen,” Melvin said of late-inning comebacks. “We’ve talked about how, at times, our best at-bats come from the seventh inning on, even if we haven’t done a ton to that point. Give their guy credit. Quantrill pitched really well. Once we got into the bullpen, it was a different story.”

For Lowrie, the homer provided redemption. His uncharacteristic throwing error in the first inning on what would have been an inning-ending double-play ball induced by A’s starter Frankie Montas allowed Cleveland to score its first of two runs.

Keeping with the déjà vu theme, Wednesday’s pitching performance by the A’s was also eerily similar to the previous night. Like Sean Manaea on Tuesday, Montas labored out of the gate, throwing more than 30 pitches in the first. Unlike Manaea, though, Montas was able to regroup and provide six innings of stellar work.

Montas held the Indians hitless for the remainder of his outing after the two runs (one earned) in the first, finishing with two hits allowed and six strikeouts. One night after a heroic performance of 8 1/3 scoreless innings of relief, the A’s bullpen was once again solid, allowing just one run on two hits through the final three innings.

Over his last eight starts dating back to June 26, Montas has posted a 2.79 ERA. It’s quite the turnaround from his first 15 starts, which saw him go 7-7 with a 4.79 ERA.

“Frankie was fantastic,” Melvin said. “He started out pretty much like Manaea did [Tuesday]. Second inning, he got through it. After that, he was fantastic. He’s coming into his own where, maybe in the past, it would snowball on him a little bit and maybe he doesn’t have an answer for it. He has an answer for it now. 

“After last night, we needed some innings today. I didn’t think there was any way he would give us six innings, and he did.”