Jay Jackson thought about declining the assignment to Triple-A. He was 36 years old, had struggled to begin the season and there were no guarantees that he would be back in the major leagues.

The Twins’ front office convinced him otherwise.

“Just talking to the front office and them relaying to me that they do believe in me and I have a chance to be back here,” Jackson said. “After that, it was, ‘OK, I’m going to give it the best I have again and see where it goes.’”

Turns out his return to the majors came fairly quickly. He was designated for assignment on May 19 and was back in the majors less than a month later, added once again to the roster on Wednesday.

Jackson, who gave up a run in an inning pitched on Wednesday, returned in place of Louie Varland, who was called upon to make a spot start on Tuesday and filled in well with five scoreless innings. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Twins designated Diego Castillo for assignment.

“He’s looked pretty good. He’s capable and he’s a good option to bring back in this role right now,” manager Rocco Baldelli said of Jackson. “He’s a guy that’s still in a lot of ways that we look at pitching and evaluate guys, our group likes him. That’s it. I like him.”

These past few weeks, Jackson said, have been filled with a lot of family time, reflection and getting himself back to “feeling like myself again.”

Jackson was roughed up over the span of 17 games, giving up 19 runs (17 earned) and posting a 6.85 earned-run average. His 1.388 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) was far from where it was last season (0.910) in his most productive year as a major leaguer.

The final straw before he was designated for assignment was a one-inning performance against the Cleveland Guardians in which he gave up four runs (three earned).

“Bad luck or whatnot, the numbers were still bad at the end of the day, and I didn’t perform the way I wanted to or the way the team expected me to,” Jackson said. “Just to get back to the normal old Jay and be out there performing the way I should.”

Jackson, who was often at the hospital this offseason with his son, who was born prematurely last year, said he “didn’t get as right,” as he would have wanted to, noting that he wasn’t preparing as well as he “probably should have.”

But now he’s been given a second opportunity after going down to Triple-A and he hopes to make the most of it.

“I’m glad to be back and try to help the team as much as I can, and just to be back with the city, knowing they had trust in me to be back to help the team,” Jackson said. “That’s the main thing to me, to be back here and give it another shot to perform better than I did last time.”

Briefly

Reliever Brock Stewart (shoulder tendinitis) has been playing catch and Wednesday, he threw off the mound, throwing five fastballs. He reported coming out of that feeling good. … The Twins will play host to the Oakland Athletics for four games beginning on Thursday. Joe Ryan will start the first game.

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