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I've watched two of the three Yankees games practically on mute.  I understand first-ballot HOFers don't come along very often, but this is getting out of hand.
Let's talk Mariners instead, since I won't have to hear about The Captain any more during Ms-Yankees broadcasts unless we're beating them in the playoffs.
Elias faced a veteran lineup and they did what vets do to rookies that make mistakes: punish em. I'm okay with that in the abstract.  Elias was MAD when he gave up that late homer against Tampa Bay, and he was mad when he hung that slider.  He's a fighter, and he's learning WHERE he needs to make mistakes.  If you screw up and bounce it to Zunino, no big.  If you screw up and leave it fat in the plate, that's a problem that you can get away with in AA but not against a $200 million team.
He's learning like you said, Doc - improving the database, the pitches, tweaks here and there.  His stuff is plenty good, and his control is fine.  His attitude is great, and he looks more like a #3 every day even with the speed bumps.  Which is great, because we only need him to be a #4 or 5 right now.
Remember when Jason Vargas was our #2?  Yeah... Elias has more tools to work with than Vargas, and he's learning the pitchability by leaps and bounds. And the occasional stumble, but you live with that from most pitchers, let alone rooks.
BTW, if you want some fun look at the 2010 Mariners sometime, post-Cliff-Lee, and compare them to 2014.
Jack Wilson, Chone Figgins, Moore and Rob Johnson sharing the backstop, Jose Lopez, Casey Kotchman... it was Branyan and Ichiro on offense and then a HUGE helping of nothing, while the rotation was two #4s in Vargas and Fister (pre-plateau-leap), RRS and David Pauley. This team, even with those offensive holes, is soooo much better to watch. I'm still enjoying June baseball - ain't that something?
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And speaking of Zunino... 2nd in the AL in XBH from a catcher? His rate stats should be high since he's not in a job share and has a goodly percentage of at-bats, but that .180 ISO ain't shabby. Imagine what'll happen when he starts hitting more than .220 and leaves Miguel Olivo eating his dust.
Also, I remember some chuckles when I brought up that Seager was due a REALLY nice contract as perhaps the 3rd-best-slugging 3B in the league behind Cabrera and Texas-Beltre (okay, 4th behind Longoria but with Seager playing in the Safe... yeesh).  How's his .200 ISO looking with 25 more already this year?   We'd better lock that kid up...
Seager, Zunino and obviously Cano are part of our contending offense going forward.  Have to be.  If Jones can be okay and you can get some kind of average job share out of Saunders/Gillespie, there's two more positions.   Ackley is a MIF on a corner OF position, and it's not getting much better. He's got no platoon split for his career so it doesn't even help to job-share him. He should be playing 2nd base as a decent glove starter for someone. It just won't be us.
LoMo hitting more homeruns at first would be nice.  Hart back and slugging would be nice.  But we really do need another hitter (or two).  Peterson (14th homer last night) needs to be promoted shortly but any non-Choi bat assistance is probably still a year away.
Gotta get a corner OF / 1B / DH who can help, soon. The 2nd wildcard is doing us the favor of letting us dream about the playoffs, but we need more firepower. In the meantime, though, I like the fight in the club and the progress toward contending.
Just don't wanna settle for "progress" in year 11 of the rebuild...
~G