The Tigers’ Andrew Romine dragged a bunt between the pitcher’s mound and first base Sunday afternoon, and Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop scooped the ball and relayed it to Steve Pearce at first base in one motion — just as Romine arrived at first base.

Your classic bang-bang play, as Romine’s teammate Al Avila came home from third with two outs already tallied in the bottom of the second inning.

Jim Wolf, the first-base umpire, called Romine out, and Detroit manager Brad Ausmus quickly challenged the ruling. With repeated replays during American League Division Series Game 3, it became apparent, at least to the TV rights holders: Romine touched first base with his right foot before Pearce secured the toss in the back of his glove.

“They’re going to call him safe,” TBS analyst Dennis Eckersley declared. His boothmate Joe Simpson concurred, but then Eckersley backtracked: “I think he’s safe, too, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they called him out.”

They called him out, the game remained scoreless and the Orioles wound up prevailing, sweeping and advancing via a tight 2-1 victory. And the broadcasters — the in-game crew as well as postgame studio occupants Pedro Martinez and Gary Sheffield — verbally shrugged their shoulders at what they perceived as an injustice.

So here’s a modest suggestion as Major League Baseball takes notes for Year 2 of expanded replay in 2015: Make the replay officials available and accountable, just as has been the case traditionally for on-site umpires. Even if it’s only for the postseason, even if only with the rights holders, and the rest of us media schlubs will take it from there.

The replay officials for the Division Series, working out of MLB’s command center in Manhattan, are umpires CB Bucknor, Chris Conroy, Ed Hickox and Brian O’Nora. If you want a minimum of four sets of eyes on play at all times, add a fifth umpire who can step out and speak during playoff contests.

Regarding Sunday’s play specifically, there’s a misconception about the “back of the glove” deal. Once the ball hits the glove and the fielder goes into a continuous action as a part of that, like Pearce stretching and closing his glove, that can suffice for possession. It would have been a value-add to have an umpire explain this during Sunday’s broadcast and assuage angry Tigers’ fans.

Expanded replay will undergo significant change this winter. For instance, you can bet on an elimination of the manager’s phony-baloney trot onto the field while he waits for the signal — to challenge or not — after every close call. By any reasonable measure, the endeavor has proven successful, yet there naturally remains room for improvement.

MLB employs two fine speakers who oversee the umps in executive vice president of baseball operations Joe Torre and senior VP of baseball operations Peter Woodfork, yet there’s still merit in hearing directly from the folks who make the decisions. In Game 3 of last year’s World Series, Torre joined crew chief John Hirschbeck and third-base ump Jim Joyce in explaining the walk-off obstruction call, and that worked very well.

Umpires own a proud history of being more accessible than their counterparts in other sports. Updating that tradition with the times would help make an already-great project even better.

The Angels, who went 98-64 during the regular season, became the first club in the Division Series era to lead the majors in victories and then pull an 0-fer in the postseason when the Royals swept them out of the AL Division Series Sunday night.

Even though Los Angeles of Anaheim employs the game’s best player (and likely 2014 AL MVP) in Mike Trout, the Angels’ future is hardly shiny bright. Albert Pujols, while still useful, is a shell of a player who signed a 10-year contract in December 2011. Josh Hamilton, who went hitless in the ALDS, looks even worse than his prime self and has three years left on his deal. The farm system is not deep, and you’d bet on their AL West neighbors — the Mariners, Astros and Rangers — improving in 2015 while only a fool would bet against the A’s and Billy Beane.

How ’bout these apples? Of the last four teams to lead the industry in wins, over three seasons, only one has returned to the playoffs the subsequent year. Last year’s Cardinals are back after winning 97 games in 2013. The Red Sox also won 97 last year, and they finished in last place in the AL East. The 2012 Nationals (98 wins) and 2011 Phillies (102) both were upset in their Division Series and both followed up by missing the playoffs. The Angels have a decent chance to follow this unusual, small-sampled trend.

I wrote last week the Angels-Royals Division Series would end in a sweep, so in a sense, to steal a Joe Girardi phrase, I was right. Of course, I had the Angels sweeping. Tremendous job by the Royals, who honored their pitching coach Dave Eiland’s proclamation that “We may do something.”

I’ll stick with the Orioles advancing to the World Series. But not in a sweep.