After being held out of each of the Toronto Blue Jays’ last three games with back spasms, pitcher Jesse Chavez returned to the bullpen against his former team on Friday.

Chavez, acquired from the Oakland Athletics in November for reliever Liam Hendricks, returned to the mound as the A’s visited the Jays for the start of a three-game series.

In the top of the seventh inning, with the Jays down 6-2, Chavez entered the game with Oakland designated hitter Coco Crisp on first base.

Chavez allowed a hit in 1.2 scoreless innings in the Blue Jays’ 8-5 loss.

Chavez, 32, spent parts of the past four seasons with the A’s, including the entirety of the last two years in the starting rotation.

Through six appearances this season, he has allowed just one run and holds a 1.50 earned run average (ERA) through six innings.

Despite the loss, Jays manager John Gibbons pointed to Chavez’s performance as a positive.

“Chavez had been out a little bit with the back but I thought he looked good,” Gibbons said. “A couple good things happen with a loss, depends how you look at it.”

Chavez was happy to get back into action. His back has caused him problems for years but he thought it was behind him when he had a full offseason without any trouble.

“It happened during the season, which is something I didn’t want to happen,” Chavez said of the injury, which he insisted wasn’t serious. “It’s something I try to prevent before the season. But it was something that just reminded me of certain parts of my body that I need to get firing to keep it stable.”

Last season, with the Athletics, Chavez played to a 7-15 record in 30 games with a 4.18 ERA. In 2014, he went 8-8 with a 3.45 ERA.

On the last year of a contract that projects to pay him $4.7 million, Chavez lost the fifth spot in the starting rotation to Aaron Sanchez in spring training this season.

Hendricks, 26, is riding a 9.95 ERA after allowing seven runs in his first five appearances out of the Athletics bullpen this year.

After the Jays went with just six relievers against the Baltimore Orioles this week, Chavez’s return was needed, particularly to pitch the middle innings of games.

This isn’t his first time with the Jays though. Before joining the Athletics, he spent a season with the Jays in 2012, making nine appearances.

For Josh Donaldson, who also played in Oakland with Chavez, the first game against his former team was special.

“I loved Oakland,” Donaldson said. “We had a bunch of really good teams and most importantly we had a great group of guys over there and 10 years from now I’ll still remember my time over there, it was pretty special.”

And Chavez looks back on his time in Oakland fondly too.

“They gave me the extended opportunity to learn who I am and gave me the chance to become the pitcher I know I can be and the one I am right now,” he said with a smile.

Despite the Jays’ 8-10 start to the season, Chavez insists this team is different from the one he played on in 2012.

“It’s a lot more relaxed this time and winning will do that to you,” Chavez said. “It was here in 2012 but it was just about how we were going to find it and we’ve found it, which is a good thing.”