ANGELS NOTEBOOK: SANTANA STAYS IN ROTATION.

Byline: BEN VILLA

Staff Writer

ANAHEIM -- When you have the biggest cushion of any division leader in baseball, you can afford to play a hunch -- and the Angels are with Ervin Santana.

Before Saturday's 7-6 loss to the Texas Rangers, Angels manager Mike Scioscia announced that the struggling Santana would start Monday night against the Oakland A's, despite the fact Santana has struggled in his past two starts, including a dreadful performance against Seattle on Tuesday. The right-hander allowed fiveruns and four hits in the first inning against the Mariners and was able to get only one out before he was yanked in favor of Dustin Moseley.

Moseley was also in the running to start Monday, but he pitched 2 1/3innings Saturday, ruling him out.

Santana is 5-12 with a 6.38 ERA, but with the Angels 6 1/2 games ahead of the Mariners with 27 left to play, Scioscia can afford to give his young starter another opportunity to right himself.

"Our pitching coach Mike Butcher has targeted a few things that he thought Ervin got away from in his last start," Scioscia said. "Ervin understands this and hopefully, we'll see the same stuff Monday night that he had in Boston."

No matter how Santana does, it might not matter with Bartolo Colon likely to rejoin the Angels in a week or so. Colon started for Triple-A Salt Lake on Thursday and pitched five innings, allowing three runs. He threw 69 pitches and his fastball topped out at 95mph.

The former Cy Young Award winner will start Wednesday for the Bees and after that, he could come off the disabled list and rejoin the starting rotation.

"We'll see where Bart is after Wednesday," Scioscia said. "But a healthy Bartolo Colon is huge for us. When he started the season, he was throwing the ball better than anytime he had in the last four, five years, and that includes his Cy Young year. A healthy Bartolo would be a big boost to us."

Roster moves: Saturday was the first day major-league rosters could be expanded to 40 players, and the Angels made their fair share of moves.

Even though he's still battling a hamstring injury and is not 100percent, Mike Napoli was activated and is available to catch and pinch-hit.

The Angels also purchased the contracts of right-handed pitchers Jason Bulger and Rich Thompson from Salt Lake. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Angels transferred right-handed pitcher Chris Resop to the 60-day disabled list.

Juan Rivera will rejoin the team today, and Erick Aybar began a rehab assignment Saturday night at Single-A Rancho Cucamonga. He's expected to be activated Tuesday.