Another LaHair story

This time the Everett Herald gets on board the Bryan LaHair train. There is a quote from a certain Rattler manager, too.

It's time for Bryan LaHair to move on after the most memorable year of his professional baseball life, although it's not easy.

How can a guy not think about his first day in the big leagues, when the Seattle Mariners called him up July 18? Or his first career hit, a single July 22 when he drove a pitch from Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka into right field?

There was the first home run, July 28 at Texas off the Rangers' Scott Feldman. And the best game he played, July 29 when he went 3-for-4, homered and scored three times at Texas.

"It was an unbelievable experience," LaHair said last week before a workout at the Mariners' spring training complex. "I got my first hit and I got my first home run. But it's all in the past now. It's good for me to move on."

The question concerning the 26-year-old LaHair is whether the Mariners will move on with or without him in 2009. He hit just three home runs in 136 at-bats and the Mariners, not convinced that LaHair is the answer at first base, signed Russell Branyan early this offseason.

Renowned for his powerful left-handed stroke in the minor leagues, where he hit 73 home runs in 640 at-bats after the Mariners drafted him in 2002, LaHair had a chance to show it when the M's called him up in July.

It wasn't exactly a soft landing for LaHair.

But, he has a backer.

One keenly interested observer this offseason is Terry Pollreisz, who was LaHair's hitting coach during the 2006 and 2007 seasons at Class AAA Tacoma.

Pollreisz, manager this year at Class A Wisconsin, says nobody saw LaHair's true hitting potential after he was called up.

"There's a lot more in the tank," he said.