Ervin Santana is scratched from start

Reporting from Peoria, Ariz. — 

After losing staff ace John Lackey to free agency over the winter, the Angels need a healthy Ervin Santana to step up this season. So no one was laughing when the former All-Star banged his valuable right elbow on a piece of furniture a few days ago.

“Some people call it the funny bone,” pitching coach Mike Butcher said. “It’s just not that funny.”

So Santana, who made two trips to the disabled list because of elbow and forearm problems last year, was scratched from his scheduled start Tuesday and won’t pitch again until Sunday.

The inflammation Santana had in his elbow has since subsided and he has been able to play catch, but the Angels said there was no reason to push him at this stage of the season.

Santana has thrown five scoreless innings against big league competition this spring, although he did get knocked around for five runs on seven hits in a 3 2/3-inning camp outing against triple-A hitters last week. He threw 42 of his 63 pitches for strikes in that game, displaying a 96-mph fastball and a firm slider.

“We have a little bit of a buffer in what he’s going to need to do. So he’s going to miss this turn,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. Scioscia said Santana probably will have a hard bullpen session Thursday, then throw at least 75 pitches in Sunday’s game against Cleveland. That would leave him on track for one final spring outing against the Dodgers in Anaheim.

“Scheduling-wise, it’s better just to go ahead and just give him his complete rest … and then go forward after that,” Butcher said.

So far, so good

As has become standard procedure at the Angels’ camp, more than a dozen Japanese journalists, cameras at the ready, waited beneath the rain in the players’ parking lot Tuesday for Hideki Matsui to arrive.

They had a reason to be there this time, the day after Matsui’s first appearance in the outfield in nearly two years. But the newest Angels slugger wasn’t limping when he got out of his car, which qualified as good news on both sides of the Pacific.

“No problem,” Matsui said. “Everything’s good.”

Matsui was spared from making the trip to Peoria for Tuesday’s exhibition with the Mariners, but Scioscia said that had nothing to do with his surgically repaired knees.

“Hideki feels very good,” he said. “He had a bounce to his step yesterday after getting out in the outfield. I think he really feeds off of that.”

Scioscia said Matsui will test himself in the outfield again before the weekend.

Midseason form

Ichiro Suzuki robbed the Angels’ Jeff Mathis of extra bases with a breathtaking play in the second inning, turning his back to the plate and diving head-first toward the wall on to the warning track to make a sliding catch.

“He’s won some Gold Gloves right?” said Angel reliever Scot Shields who was just a few feet away in the right-field bullpen. “That’s why he’s won them.”

Even though the catch short-circuited an Angels rally, Shields confessed that he saluted it play with a clap.

“You have to appreciate catches like that,” he said. “[It’s] spring training. In the regular season [it’s] ‘Drop that!’ ”

Ichiro, who has won a Gold Glove in each of his nine big league seasons, could have sustained serious injury on the play. But he said that never entered his mind.

“I didn’t see any danger in that situation,” he said. “It’s instinct as a professional player and an obligation to go all out even though it’s spring training.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com