LOS ANGELES -- They travel to play in California four separate times: in April, May, June and August. They play a 10-game road trip that whisks them from Texas to Oakland to Chicago. They cross three time zones three separate times and cross two time zones a half-dozen times more in the opening 20 weeks of the season alone.

So the Pirates' 2010 schedule is all over the map, indeed.

"I haven't looked at it," manager John Russell said yesterday before his Pirates played the Los Angeles Dodgers with whom they open next year -- their first season starting at home since 2005 and only their third in the past 10 years. "I don't know what our West Coast trips are."

Well, they go to Arizona and San Francisco immediately after playing host to the Dodgers April 5, 7 and 8. They open May in Los Angeles. They visit Oakland in late June amid a stretch of 15 consecutive American League dates in interleague play. And they return to the Pacific time zone in early August for three games in San Diego before heading back east to Houston.

"It's funny. I've never really seen that" kind of hopping around the west, Russell said. "Every time we did it when I played, we did at least two cities [consecutively] out here."

The Pirates last opened seasons on the North Shore in 2005 and '04.

In announcing their schedule yesterday, the Pirates revealed a Father's Day weekend series involving interleague geographic rival Cleveland preceded by a set with another team becoming a schedule staple, the Chicago White Sox.

The Chicago Cubs visit Memorial Day weekend, Philadelphia July 4 weekend and Atlanta Labor Day weekend.

The schedule includes two lengthy road trips: a 10-game trip at April's end going from Houston to Milwaukee to Los Angeles, plus a nine-game adventure to end June starting with Texas, Russell's longtime team, and ending with Oakland and the Chicago Cubs.

Delwyn Young awoke at his Woodland Hills, Calif., home with a stiff back yesterday morning.

Even though it subsided after stretching and exercising, Russell elected to keep Young from the starting lineup last night for the fifth time in the past seven games -- a number expected to grow with today's likely absence.

"I'm thinking probably Friday is the earliest we'd see him," Russell said of the second baseman, whose bat he intended to "shy away" from using even in pinch-batting roles today as well.

• Yes, Andy LaRoche heard those boobirds Monday when he first stepped to the plate against his former club, and he can't understand it. "I got them Manny over here. They should love me."

• Reliever Evan Meek has been shut down for the season, giving him time to rest the strained left oblique that put him on the disabled list last month and time to prepare for mini-camp.

• Hitting coach Don Long, returning to the same dugout where he got badly cut on the cheek by a broken bat in April 2008, reached out and snagged a foul ball Monday, eliciting cheers from many in the Dodger Stadium crowd. "Stung for a couple of innings, too," he joked.

• In World Cup play, prospect Brad Lincoln allowed just one earned run and struck out five in 71/3 innings of a 4-2 victory against Japan yesterday. He has a 1.46 ERA in 121/3 innings in the tournament. Pedro Alvarez went 1 for 3 with a double, leaving him with a .174 batting average, one home run, three RBIs and eight strikeouts in 23 at-bats.