Duaner Sanchez's right foot is touching the rubber for the first time since March. Sporting a scraggly beard and sunglasses, and with a young clubhouse attendant named T.J. capturing his delivery with a video camera for rehab coordinator Randy Niemann, the reliever tentatively makes his first throw atop a mound since a bone weakened in that accident gave way during spring training. "I was, to be honest, a little bit nervous about it," he says, with good reason. It's been 16 months since that late-night taxi accident left Sanchez sitting on the asphalt in the southbound lane of Interstate 95 on July 31, 2006. Sanchez was in the backseat on his way to a Dominican restaurant when his cab was broadsided by a Ford Crown Victoria that had cut across three lanes. Sanchez never saw it coming. The jolt of the collision sent his taxi cab spinning into the concrete barrier that divides northbound and southbound traffic on I-95. Sanchez used his right arm to brace for the blow. Only now, in a city sometimes referred to as "Port St. Lonesome" - even during its bustling spring-training months - is Sanchez nearing a return.