3 key takeaways from the Cubs' Opening Day win over the Diamondbacks

Everyone can take a deep breath. It's OK. The Chicago Cubs have a win and all is right and well in the world. The offense exploded for 10 runs on Thursday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks, drawing six walks and going 5-for-12 with runners in scoring position and Justin Steele ground his way through a start where he didn't have his best stuff to give the team a chance to win.

Just like I don't draw damning conclusions from two games in mid-March in Tokyo, I'm not drawing saying there are any irrefutable takeaways from the team's domestic Opening Day. If you lose your opener, the sky is falling and if you win, you're World Series-bound. That said, some high-level points jumped out as I stayed up way past my bedtime that are worth talking about.

Justin Steele showed a Jon Lester-like mentality working through some early issues

During his Cubs career, Jon Lester was a two-time All-Star and a Cy Young finalist. At his best, he was capable of going toe-to-toe with any team's ace on any given day. But there were a lot of starts, especially later in his playing days, where he wasn't at his best but he put his head down and seemed to will the team to a victory.

Even on days where he wasn't hitting his spots or his pitches weren't dialed in perfectly, Lester - simply put - found a way to get it done. And that's the best way to describe Steele's second start of the year, a five-inning, three-earned run performance on Thursday in Arizona.

Early on, Steele looked to be fighting his mechanics and showed a lot of the same red flags we saw in his final Cactus League tune-up and his Tokyo Series start against the Los Angeles Dodgers - leaving a lot of pitches up in the zone and giving up a ton of hard contact. As the game wore on, he started burying his slider more regularly and gutted his way through five innings (thanks to an incredible inning-ending double play in the fifth).

He wasn't at his best. But he did what few pitchers can do: get the job done when he didn't have his best stuff.

The bottom of the order will determine what this Cubs team turns out to be

In Tokyo, the Cubs got virtually no production from their 2-3-4 hitters. But there are few real concerns that Kyle Tucker, Seiya Suzuki and Michael Busch are going to put up numbers when it's all said and done.

The make-or-break piece of this puzzle isn't found at the top of Craig Counsell's lineup card. It's at the bottom. When Chicago finally got things going offensively, it was because Pete Crow-Armstrong and Miguel Amaya flipped the switch at the plate. In Thursday's win, the Cubs' 6-9 hitters combined to go 6-for-17 (.353) with six runs scored and six RBI (five courtesy of Amaya).

If the Cubs get production from the bottom of the order all season long, we're going to see a team more reminiscent of what we witnessed in the second half last year. That, plus the offseason addition of one of the league's best offensive weapons in Tucker, would significantly raise this team's floor and bring much-needed consistency at the plate over the grind of 162.

Ian Happ loves Opening Day and Eugenio Suarez loves hitting against the Cubs

Technically, Thursday wasn't Opening Day for the Cubs. It was their third regular season game of the year. But for the Diamondbacks, it was - and Ian Happ channeled that energy and delivered yet another memorable season-starting performance.

Happ hit the Cubs' first home run of the year and finished the night 2-for-5 with a long ball, double, three RBI and a walk. He's accounted for the Cubs' first long ball multiple times over the years and it was hardly a shock to see him setting the tone out of the leadoff spot.

On the other side of things, Arizona infielder Eugenio Suarez continued his years-long onslaught against the Cubs, hitting a no-doubt home run (the 33rd of his career against Chicago - the most he's hit against any opponent) in the contest. The veteran third baseman has an OPS pushing .900 in 126 career games against the North Siders - and his going yard on Thursday surprised absolutely nobody.