Johan Santana tossed neither one-liners nor baseballs Monday.

Santana canceled a planned "Late Show" reading of the "Top 10" list with David Letterman because the southpaw did not have time to record it at Citi Field postgame Monday and also accompany the team to Washington, he said.

Santana also did not throw a bullpen session Monday, as had been planned. Team officials decided this morning to have Santana wait until Friday at Yankee Stadium for his first outing since last Friday's 134-pitch no-hitter. Once that decision was made, the southpaw delayed the between-starts bullpen session until Tuesday.

Pitching Thursday in D.C. had been on the table, but Terry Collins said that might have limited Santana's pitch count, even with the extra day of rest. More importantly, it would have forced R.A. Dickey to pitch on short rest Wednesday.

"We talked about possibly bringing R.A. back early, on short rest," Collins said. "I knew R.A. could do it. I knew he was willing to do it. I couldn't find anybody that liked the idea, except R.A. He didn't mind it. But when you're 8-1 and pitching as well as he is, you really don't want to disrupt the whole pre-start schedule that he's on."

So the six-man rotation for one turn is Chris Young on Tuesday, Jeremy Hefner on Wednesday, Dickey on standard rest on Thursday, Santana on two days of extra rest on Friday in the Bronx, Dillon Gee on Saturday and Jon Niese on Sunday. Gee is leapfrogging Niese in the order so that the southpaws will not start consecutive days, Collins said.

"I'm fine," Santana said. "Yesterday I played catch. It's just one of those days where you threw some extra pitches. But at the same time it's not like I was dying or anything. I'm fine.

"We talked about what is best, and they feel it is better to have an extra day. I'm fine with it. We haven't forgot here that I'm coming back from surgery. We talked about trying to get an extra day here and there. I think this time they want me to do that. It's fine with me."

Said Collins: "If it was going to be Wednesday or Thursday, we were going to really have to limit his workload. If we moved to Thursday, if we gave him an extra day, all of a sudden now you mess with Dickey. ... We talked about possibly bringing (Santana) back on regular rest. And I didn't like that scenario. That's a lot of workload in a five-day span."

As for canceling the Letterman appearance, Santana said: "It's something I really would like to do, but we're on a schedule here. Unfortunately, we're not going to have time."

Jokingly told maybe he could have squeezed in a top five instead, the southpaw replied:

"Maybe two."