Astacio on a High With a 9-0 Victory : Dodgers: He mixes up Rockies in second consecutive shutout. Piazza knocks in two more runs.

Pedro Astacio kept it low in Mile High.

“You keep the ball down here and they hit ground balls. That’s what I did tonight,” Astacio said after pitching the Dodgers to a 9-0 victory over Colorado at Mile High Stadium on Saturday night. “I had a good location of the fastball and good location of the change-up. I threw them all for strikes. I pitched my game.”

Catcher Mike Piazza said Astacio knows how to make batters work.

“He realizes that when he gets ahead of hitters, they have to hit his pitch,” Piazza said. “Tonight, you saw he got hitters to swing at a lot of his pitches. He made a lot of quality pitches with two strikes.”

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said that when Astacio is in command of his pitches, “he’s as tough as anyone.”

Colorado Manager Don Baylor said Astacio definitely was in command Saturday night.

“It was just three up, three down, three up, three down. What are you going to do?” Baylor said. “He’s a hot pitcher right now. He shut us down pretty good.”

The shutout was Astacio’s second in a row as the Dodgers ended the Rockies’ five-game winning streak.

“He’s going to be one heck of a pitcher,” Lasorda said. “He will get even better.”

Astacio (13-8), who leads the Dodgers in victories, gave up seven hits, struck out six and walked one. He pitched a five-hit shutout against the Florida Marlins on Sept. 12.

Bruce Hurst (0-2), making his fourth start this season, gave up three runs and three hits in three innings, struck out four and walked two. Lance Painter then gave up two runs and five hits in two innings.

After the game started 13 minutes late because rain delayed preparation of the field, the Dodgers took a 3-0 lead in the third. Jody Reed and Raul Mondesi singled, Jose Offerman walked and Piazza hit a two-run single, giving him 94 runs batted in. Eric Karros followed with an RBI groundout.

Cory Snyder doubled in the fourth and scored on Mike Sharperson’s single. Karros doubled and scored on Tim Wallach’s single in the fifth to make it 5-0.

The Dodgers added four runs in the eighth on Astacio’s RBI single, a wild pitch by Mo Sanford with Sharperson on third and Mondesi’s two-run homer, his second of the season.

Colorado’s Andres Galarraga went 0 for 4, ending a career-best 15-game hitting streak.