But of all the good moments Monday afternoon, it was seeing the team's struggling closer — taken out in each of his two previous appearances over the weekend against the Giants — that delighted owner Loria the most.
"My favorite moment? When Heath came in and knocked them out of there, put an end to it," said Loria, who spent $191 million this offseason, including $27 million to bring in Bell, a three-time All-Star closer in San Diego.
The Marlins (27-22) didn't necessarily get any superstar performances Monday. But they got some pretty good lifts from their usual leaders — Giancarlo Stanton, Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes — to knock off the Nationals (29-19), who came in from a late Sunday night game in Atlanta having swept the Braves out of first.
The Marlins fell behind 3-1 in the sixth before four consecutive hits got them back in it.
Ramirez, who finished with three hits, started the inning with a single to right. Stanton followed with his 12th home run of the season — a 412-foot blast that bounced just to the left of the letter "R'' on the Clevelander sign in left-center.
The home run was the 11th this month for Stanton, who needs just one more to tie Dan Uggla (May 2008) for the most powerful month in team history.
The Marlins' rally continued with Logan Morrison's double to right and Bryan Petersen's single to left. After Zimmermann struck out John Buck swinging, Chris Coghlan sent a line drive to left just deep enough to allow Morrison to come racing home with the go-ahead run.
The Marlins then tacked on an insurance run in the seventh, thanks to a lot of hustle from Jose Reyes, who started the inning by stretching a bloop single to center into a double. Reyes then advanced to third on Omar Infante's groundout to third and scored on Ramirez's sacrifice fly to left.
Starter Carlos Zambrano went six innings for Miami, scattering seven hits and three earned runs on 111 pitches to pick up the win and improve to 3-3. But he got a lot of help in the seventh, when he left with runners on first and second and nobody out.
Left-hander Dan Jennings came in and got top prospect Bryce Harper to fly out down the line in left. Coghlan, who made a stellar running catch to preserve a Marlins win last week, made another Monday by sliding to catch Harper's fly just before it hit the ground. He promptly got up and fired the ball into the infield, keeping Roger Bernadina at first.
Edward Mujica then came in and got Ryan Zimmerman, who blasted a two-run double earlier in the game, to ground into an inning-ending, 6-4-3 double play on one pitch.
All there was left to do after that was watch Bell finish it in the ninth.