Kaelen Culpepper had the baseball rising Sunday.
MLB Pipeline's No. 49 overall prospect tallied two hits in a Triple-A doubleheader, and both of them left the yard. The 2024 first-round pick collected his first multihomer day of the season, but the long balls were split over St. Paul's twin bill at CHS Field.
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Culpepper started his Easter with a leadoff first-pitch roundtripper off MLB's No. 16 prospect Payton Tolle. The southpaw fired a four-seam fastball into the lower half of the strike zone, and Culpepper clubbed it 379 feet for the lone earned run surrendered by the top Red Sox prospect in the Saints' 4-2 loss.
After a short break between contests, the Twins' second-ranked prospect took his time before his next homer. In the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 2, the right-handed-hitting shortstop tagged a cutter by righty Wyatt Olds on the inner half for a three-run homer. Worcester still swept the day with an 11-9 victory in 10 innings.
Culpepper, a product of Kansas State, smashed his first homer of the season in the second game of the season against Indianapolis. The 23-year-old boosted his slash line to .294/.368/.559 with a combined 2-for-7 performance Sunday, while also tallying his third walk of the campaign.
"It's a special combination of confidence, and I think that comes from a level of preparedness, and then openness to feedback and improving," Twins director of player development Drew MacPhail said in October. "That's a rare combo, that I think he has both in an incredibly healthy amount."
In his first full professional season, Culpepper posted a .289/.375/.469 slash line with 20 homers and 25 stolen bases across 113 games between High-A and Double-A. He received postseason All-Star honors in the Texas League. The Twins then invited the 21st overall pick in 2024 to big league camp this spring.
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Emmanuel Rodriguez also homers for St. Paul
MLB's No. 69 prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez connected on his second roundtripper of the season in Game 2. The lefty-swinging outfielder took advantage of a middle-middle slider by southpaw Tyler Samaniego in the fourth. Rodriguez sent it 396 feet with an exit velocity of 109.8 mph.
Before being sent to Minor League camp in Spring Training, Rodriguez raked with a 60 percent hard-hit rate and a 94 mph average exit velocity. That included a 114 mph double the 23-year-old lefty ripped on March 9, which would've been tied for the Twins' hardest-hit ball of the entire 2025 season. (Byron Buxton roped a 114 mph double in August against the Yankees.)
The Twins' No. 4 prospect, who has suffered an array of injuries the past four seasons, still hasn't exceeded the century mark of games in a Minor League season. But to begin his sixth season in Minnesota's system, the 23-year-old has seven hits -- two homers -- and an .828 OPS across seven contests.