Baltimore vs New York

Starting Pitching
Hammel, Chen, Gonzalez, Saunders
vs
Sabathia, Pettitte, Kuroda, Hughes

Advantage: Yankees

Again, they're really not all that far apart.  Which is strange considering the names involved.  Sabathia and Pettitte have roughly as many playoff starts as the Orioles' rotation has regular season starts.  Ok, I'm just making that one up, but it's not likely all that far off.  What helps the Yanks most is that they can trim their 5th starter (Nova) and possibly use him to trim their other 5th starter (Hughes) to keep both from getting beaten up too badly.  The Orioles can't take as much advantage of that, since their starters are all of roughly the same quality.  The Yanks are a .5 BB/9 better and .9 K/9 better, and have a noticeable edge in FIP, 4.14 to 4.50.  I give the Yankees an advantage in games 1-3.

Bullpen
Johnson, Strop, O'Day, Ayala
vs
Soriano, Robertson, Logan, Rapada

Advantage: Orioles

The likes of Johnson and Strop are what got the Orioles to the postseason.  And this isn't the same Yankees bullpen without the great Mariano at the back.  Soriano and Robertson have been excellent, but if Logan or Rapada see the light of a high-leverage situation, the result will not be pretty for the pinstripers.  It may not matter if the Yanks' offense has its way, but if the games are close, the Orioles might be able to squeak by long enough to pull something unexpected.

Lineup
McLouth 7, Hardy 6, Jones 8, Wieters 2, Reynolds 3, Machado 5, Davis 9, Ford 0, Andino 4
vs
Jeter 6, Ichiro 7, Rodriguez 5, Cano 4, Swisher 9, Teixeira 3, Granderson 8, Martin 2, Ibanez 0

Advantage: Yankees

Hard not to give the Yanks the advantage here.  Not to say it's a good thing that a DH is hitting 9th, but I'd prefer that to having Lew Ford as the DH.  That and the fact that the Yankees led the AL in OBP and SLG while the Orioles were average or worse in both really sums up the story.  The O's can't even claim a defensive advantage, because while the Yanks were bad, the O's were slightly worse!  Second best offensive fWAR from the Yankees?  Gotta go with that.

Prediction: Yankees in 4
I'd call sweep, but the O's have had too much crazy crap happening to write them off completely.  Give 'em one, but there's not enough there there to roll to the LCS