KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington doesn't want to look too far into the future. But he knows what awaits his team when the second half begins Friday: A road trip through the AL West.

Texas faces the Seattle Mariners for three games starting Friday, then has two games in Oakland sandwiched between off days, and then a three-game set with the Los Angeles Angels.

"I never looked at the schedule and thought it was going to be easy," Washington said. "It is what it is. We’ve got Seattle coming out, Oakland and Anaheim. We’re going to go play.”

Washington said he doesn't know if there's a three-team race in the AL West, but knows the A's are playing well. Oakland is nine games back of Texas, but just 2 1/2 games behind in the wild card standings.

"Oakland is tough. I certainly never counted them out," Washington said. "Seattle might have put themselves in a position numbers-wise, they’ve got three teams to jump to get to the top. I guess when you look at way Oakland has been playing and the way Anaheim has been playing, certainly (we) don’t take anything for granted.

"Every team in our division has a chance except Seattle because they’ve got to jump three teams. I don’t think all three teams are going to fall apart. Oakland just has to jump two, Anaheim just has to jump one."

The Rangers are just 13-13 against AL West opponents this season. The Angels are 12-10, Oakland is 16-16 and the Mariners are 14-16. So everyone is beating up on each other in the division.