Josh Beckett, the Florida Marlins’ ace and former World Series MVP, isn’t a fancy pitcher. He throws his fastball anywhere from 88 to 96 miles per hour, his changeup at around 83, and his curveball at about 73. But mostly, he throws the fastball – at lower speeds low in the strike zone and early in the count, at harder speeds and higher in the zone when he has the hitter behind.

He throws strikes – strike after strike after strike. If the hitter swings at the first-pitch fastball Beckett almost invariably throws, he’s liable to beat it harmlessly into the ground; if he takes it, he’ll probably get behind in the count and then have to worry about the other two pitches and their widely varying speeds.

If this all sounds simple, that’s because it is. Beckett is an extraordinary talent, and much of what separates him from his peers is genetic – no amount of coaching can give a pitcher a 96 mph fastball or command of it, nor the touch that allows him to hit so many different numbers on the radar gun. But the essence of his approach – working quickly, throwing strikes, changing speeds, varying the hitter’s eye level – is what everyone learns from Little League on, and pitchers don’t need Beckett’s talent to apply it, or to be successful with it.

A good example is the Mets’ Aaron Heilman, who faced off against Beckett last night in Florida. Heilman got whacked for seven runs in four innings by the same Marlins to whom he’d allowed only one hit in his last start,What changed? To my eye, he gradually lost confidence in the simple approach. A few balls darted through the infield and dropped into the outfield and all of a sudden, instead of simply throwing his fastball and changeup low in the strike zone, Heilman began nibbling.

That doesn’t work, and it’s the primary difference between someone like Heilman, who’s never been able to do much with the talent that twice made him a first-round draft pick, and the young pitchers on the Marlins, of whom Beckett may not even be the best.

There was some controversy when Marlins manager Jack McKeon allowed his young starters – Beckett, Dontrelle Willis,and A.J.Burnett – to throw complete games in five of the season’s first 14 games. What the critics missed was not only the low pitch counts the three were running up – none has thrown more than 114 pitches in a game – but that there are many benefits to a reliance on the fastball and throwing quickly beyond simply keeping runs off the board.

Among them? Speed of the game. There’s a theory, in which I’m inclined to believe, that one of the reasons pitchers of past generations were able to complete so many more games was that the games, in the days before situational relief and television ads, were so much quicker, usually under two hours. Look at the box scores on all the Marlins’ complete games and you’ll see that their pitchers are really working fast. One of the games went 2 hours, 36 minutes; not another of them stretched over 2 hours, 23 minutes.

Less time spent on the mound means less time for a pitcher to cool off and for his muscles to tighten up. It also allows him to focus more clearly on the task at hand. Pitching coaches want pitchers to work quickly for a reason.

The same goes for throwing the fastball. If you pay much attention to the Atlanta Braves, you’ll note that their pitchers throw fastballs sometimes as much as 90% of the time. Pay attention to Tom Glavine’s next start for the Mets and watch what he does – fastballs in, out, up, down, and at different speeds. Thanks to its straightforward delivery, the fastball is less taxing on the arm than throwing breaking pitches.

Burnett, Willis, and Beckett all appear to be beginning breakout years, and there’s not much mystery as to why: They’re all showing a commitment to simple, time-tested methods of getting hitters out and working deep into games without placing undue stress on their arms.

Last night, Beckett made a team full of very hot Mets hitters look foolish. Jose Reyes watched helplessly as that 72 mph curveball wafted by following two high hard ones; Carlos Beltran chased pitches coming in at eye level; Kaz Matsui could do nothing more than chop the ball to the left side and run.

Pitching looks so easy when a pitcher with the arm to get by just on throwing strikes takes the right mental approach. It’s a credit to the Marlins’ new pitching coach, Mark Wiley, that his charges are pitching like Little Leaguers.If they keep it up, the hype this team got all spring will prove to have been warranted.