CLEVELAND, Ohio — Indians manager Terry Francona’s fortunes are looking a little brighter when it comes to replay challenges after the Tribe skipper sought clarity on Major League Baseball’s review system this week.

On Sunday, umpires ruled that Shane Bieber hit Twins batter Mitch Garver with a pitch, when video appeared to show the ball striking the end of Garver’s bat. The call was upheld and Garver eventually scored. Later in the inning, Bieber hit Twins outfielder Jake Cave on a similar play as a review again went in favor of the Twins.

But things appeared to change this week when Detroit came to town.

On Thursday, Francona challenged umpire Tony Randazzo’s ruling that Jason Kipnis missed a tag on Detroit’s Brandon Dixon in the eighth inning. Randazzo’s call was reversed, resulting in a double play that helped the Indians escape the inning and hold on for a 6-3 win.

Kipnis said with all the uncertainty surrounding challenges lately, he’s stopped predicting outcomes when watching the plays on the Progressive Field scoreboard.

“You start thinking like either they don’t have the HD cameras they keep telling us they do in New York, or they’re Twins fans, or something’s going on there,” Kipnis said. “I was certain on the last six ones and I got none of them right. But you have faith that they’re taking their time to look at them to get the call right. That’s what they’re there for. This one wound up in our favor, so it’s a big one.”

After two successful managerial challenges on Friday against Kansas City, Francona is 9-for-18 in getting calls overturned.

“I talked to Chris Young (MLB’s Vice President of on-field operations) the other day and his explanation was actually really good,” Francona said. “I wasn’t calling to complain about the calls or the way the umpires acted. I just wanted some clarification for future reference.”

Francona said he wanted reassurance that the views used by replay officials in New York were coming from the same angles and the same cameras that Indians video replay coordinator Mike Barnett uses during games.

“They have the ability to blow it up and slow it down because we only have 30 seconds,” Francona said. “But they don’t have more looks or more angles. That wouldn’t be fair. That’s what I was concerned about.”

Francona said the biggest problem, as it has been explained to him, is that video frames for some reviews do not sync up on a consistent basis.

“It’s alarming that you could lose a call because of a malfunction or something’s not lined up right,” Francona said. “(Barnett has) been on the phone trying to get some answers.”

Francona said depending on the situation in a game, he relies on Barnett and bench coach Brad Mills on whether or not challenging an umpire’s call is worth the risk.

“There’s times when I’m thinking if (Barnett) is iffy, do I want to do this? Do I want to burn a call early in the game?” Francona said. “We’ve been doing it together so long and he knows maybe when we’ll want to reach or not.

When the replay review time on Jason Kipnis’ double play Thursday against Detroit neared three minutes, Francona said his apprehension began to grow.

“The longer they went the more nervous I got,” Francona said. “I told Millsy if they don’t get this, somebody in New York is going to have to throw me out. It wouldn’t have been the umpires here. But I would have gone to the headset and got thrown out.”

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