21st birthday homers the latest cause for celebration for No. 1 Draft prospect

Much about the 2026 UCLA Bruins baseball team and No. 1 Draft prospect Roch Cholowsky feels inevitable.

Twenty-three wins in a row entering play Tuesday night. The presumptive top pick in the 2026 Draft enjoying a hitting barrage. Toss in that Cholowsky was celebrating his 21st birthday, and the stage was practically begging for fireworks.

So Cholowsky took two big swings and delivered ... twice.

With a 3-1 count in his favor his first time to the dish, Cholowsky turned on an inside pitch and launched it 108 mph off the bat way out to left field at Goodwin Field, home of Cal State Fullerton. In true flair-for-the-moment fashion, Cholowsky bookended his night by drilling a two-run shot in the ninth, a 423-footer to left-center.

The homers marked his 12th and 13th of the year, give him three over his past two games after going deep during Sunday's three-hit showing.

There are many ways to celebrate your 21st birthday -- a booming pair of home runs probably falls in the sweet spot between responsible and exhilarating. Although Cholowsky achieved his mark in the collegiate ranks, the list of Major Leaguers to homer on their 21st birthday includes a remarkable collection of talent:

Mike Trout: Aug. 7, 2012
Jason Heyward: Aug. 9, 2010
Alex Rodriguez: July 27, 1996
Frank Robinson: Aug. 31, 1956
Ted Williams: Aug, 30, 1939

Of course, those players were actually in the Majors at 21 years old. Cholowsky -- a two-sport standout at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Ariz. -- could have been on a similar trajectory, had he been drafted and signed in 2023, when he was a top-50 prospect. Now he will enter July not only as the presumptive top pick, but one expected to move with remarkable haste through the Minor Leagues.

Cholowsky, a Golden Spikes Award midseason watch list selection, added another knock during UCLA’s eventual 7-3 win, the team's 24th in a row, giving him 10 multihit contests this season. After an early-season home run deluge of six in seven contests, his power exploits had come down to earth during conference play, but his all-around production has remained: .352/.475/.728.

Factor in that he’s played a stellar defensive shortstop and walked as many times as he’s struck out (11.7 percent rate) and he’s done nothing to quell the hype that he’s the best collegiate shortstop Draft prospect in over two decades.

And that’s something certainly worthy of celebration.