CHAPEL HILL - Whenever North Carolina reliever Colin Bates goes through a tough stretch on the pitching mound, he reaches into his back right pocket to touch his rib. Yes, his rib. "It reminds me, 'Don't forget what you've done to get here,' " the redshirt freshman said, showing the curved, 3-inch bone that used to reside under his right clavicle. "Plus, it's part of my body, I don't want to leave it behind."

A year ago, the Illinois native worried that he might have to leave his pitching career behind -- that two surgeries to repair a blood clot in his throwing shoulder might affect the velocity and accuracy that had him dreaming of a pro career.

But as the No. 2 Tar Heels (36-7) prepare to play third-ranked Florida State (34-5) in a three game-series at Cary's USA National Baseball Training Center starting tonight, Bates is "throwing even better than before," said Tar Heels pitching coach Scott Forbes. Bates is a key reliever on a young pitching staff that ranks No. 1 in the country in ERA (2.07) and strikeouts (444).

"For us, [success] was never a big question," Bates said of his team's pitching dominance. "Of course, it was for everyone else, because we were unproven in games, because we lost [Andrew] Carignan and [Matt] Danford and [Robert] Woodard and Luke [Putkonen] ... . In the fall, we could tell we had some definite talent, it was just proving it."

Bates, though, had more to prove than anyone else.

Last fall, he started to sense that something was wrong when he realized he was throwing 85-86 mph, instead of 90-92 -- the speed that impressed Forbes when he noticed Bates at a Myrtle Beach, S.C., summer-league game. On top of that, his velocity started decreasing through scrimmages, instead of increasing like it did in high school.

Then he realized that his right arm was more swollen than his left. At first he figured that he was lifting weights incorrectly, until his right hand briefly went numb during a fall scrimmage game.

So he approached the team's trainer, Terri Jo Rucinski, held up both arms, and said, "Terri Jo, what's wrong with me?"

Having suffered blood clots in both shoulders herself, she immediately knew -- and rushed Bates to the emergency room.

"I know it's a complete long shot, but when you hear 'blood clot,' you have to think about your life,'' Bates said. "There's only a tiny percent that you're in jeopardy, but still, that was scary."

By 10 o'clock the following morning, Bates was in the operating room to remove the clot, which had formed from so many years of throwing. If he wanted to pitch again, he would have to have another, painful, complicated procedure that involved removing his top rib, cleaning out the scar tissue and grafting a vein from his right thigh to his shoulder.

"When he was in the ICU, I did have that one initial thought of, 'If this doesn't work, what do you tell a kid who's wanted to be a baseball player since he was 4 years old?' '' Colin's mom, Diane, said. "But that crack [of worry] closed pretty quick, because I knew with all the support around him and hard work [from him], he could get through it."

The Bates family turned to Dr. Robert Thompson, a vascular surgeon at Washington University in St. Louis who had performed the procedure on major leaguers Aaron Cook and Kip Wells.

He warned Bates that when he woke up, it would feel like he'd been hit by a bus.

"But it was more like a train,'' Bates said.

For several days, he couldn't move. For seven months, he couldn't pitch.

He cheered from the dugout as UNC returned to the College World Series, then, per NCAA rules, had to sit in the stands in Omaha, Neb., as the Tar Heels lost to Oregon State for the second straight season.

"Just watching from the bench, knowing I couldn't help out, it was a lot of getting used to, and something I didn't want to get used to,'' Bates said. "That's what drove me so hard."

When he returned home in June, he started throwing again. Day by day, his speed came back. Then his control and confidence.

He put his rib in his pocket when he took the mound for the team's intrasquad fall world series game in October -- and pitched six shutout innings.

So he put it back in his pocket when he was called to the mound for his first regular-season relief effort at Florida Atlantic in February.

"We were down [8-5], they had just hit a home run ... and the umpire was squeezing the zone a little bit," Bates remembered. "And I was like, 'I come back to this environment?' "

But he touched his rib, pitched 3 2/3 innings, and earned the first win of his college career. He enters the FSU series 4-0 as a reliever, boasts a 1.29 ERA, and his pro prospects are back intact.

"What he's done really is incredible,'' Forbes said. "We didn't really know if he would ever pitch again. ... But his work ethic was so off the charts that if ever there was a kid who was going to come back, it was going to be him. He doesn't miss a sprint, a weight lift, he doesn't take anything off, and that's why he's so good."

Maybe better than ever.

His fastball is up to 93 mph, and his change-up -- the pitch Bates said has been hardest to get back because it requires so much touch -- is becoming more consistent. Despite the two scars on his shoulder, one on his thigh and one on his wrist, he said he feels no residual soreness from his operations. The chance of a clot re-forming in his shoulder is minute; Diane Bates said that Dr. Thompson has never seen a recurrence six weeks after the surgery.

Therefore, the only pain for Bates is trying to keep track of his lucky rib, which he had to save from the laundry once and has accidentally been left in his room on game days multiple times (leading roommate/teammate Kyle Seager to bring it to him).

As superstitions go, UNC head coach Mike Fox has never heard one quite as odd as pitching with your own rib in your back pocket. But he appreciates it.

"I think it's just a reminder for Colin of where he came from -- from the time he was told, 'This is very serious, you might not ever pitch again,' to where he is now, which is kind of 'I'll show you,' " Fox said. "... He's very driven, and we're very appreciative of that."