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“It (stinks) to use the word …� Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said Friday.

The word is, at this point, a “trigger word,� notably on social media such as Twitter/X. And just like certain words ignite the right or the left in politics, this particular word turns St. Louis fans into the angriest versions of themselves (so, Philadelphia fans).

Asked about the Cardinals’ struggling offense, Marmol explained: “I’ve been trying not to use the word ‘patience,’ but there’s no other word to really use, because — this is our group, and they are good. And it’s a matter of time. And no one likes hearing that, but that’s just the reality.�

Cardinals fans have no patience for patience. It’s not simply a noun but an incendiary verbal bomb. On Twitter/X, most Cardinals tweets about failure or frustration are followed by a deluge of comments, sarcastically regarding the patience the team preached. It can be rooted to a quote from John Mozeliak, the club’s president of baseball operations. It was more than a year ago — April 25, 2023 — when “Moâ€� told Bally ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Midwest’s Jim Hayes before a game: “The one thing I’d ask from our fan base right now is a little bit of patience, because we do think that we do have the talent to win.â€�

That day, the Cardinals lost on Blake Sabol’s walk-off home run — the second-most-painful walk-off homer allowed by the team in San Francisco — and it put the 2023 Cards at 9-15.

The team proceeded to lose nine of its next 10 games … and infamously finished with a 71-91 record.

All season (and during the offseason), references to patience popped up in the comments — as well as many memes featuring “Mo.�

Well, here we are in 2024 and the Cardinals fell to 15-18 with Saturday’s rain-delayed 6-5 loss to the White Sox in 10 innings. And it seems the patience fury somehow is even hotter than last year. Perhaps it’s because fans believed the team would be fixed by now — that they all endured 2023 while believing, in the back of their minds, at least it wouldn’t be bad come 2024. Yet the fourth-place Cardinals entered Saturday with the fewest homers in the National League, the second-lowest batting average and the second-fewest hits per game.

Patience is a virtue, but in St. Louis, it’s vulgarity. And online, it’s virtual vitriol. Some of the tweets wouldn’t even pass standards to get published in this newspaper.

And as I watch the fans tweet anger about being patient, a lot of it is unadulterated infuriation, sure. But some of it, I believe, is also therapeutic venting. It’s a way for fans to blow off steam, 280 characters at a time. And referring to patience, in a way, has become unifying cry for passionate fans (who otherwise might just cry). It’s good to know you’re not alone — there are others suffering through the strikeouts and the popouts (and more strikeouts and popouts and what in the world is he swinging at?).

OK, but what about the validity of patience?

Dare I bring this up?

The Cardinals have one of baseball’s worst offenses, but there still are 130 games remaining. That’s so many games.

Paul Goldschmidt has unleashed some frighteningly bad swings this season. He has a .215 average and .596 OPS, yet that’s a desired benchmark for Lars Nootbaar and his .162 average and .532 OPS (the league average OPS this year, so far, is .694).

But Marmol explained that Goldschmidt and some guys are feeling confident in their swings. And, oh yeah, there are the backs of the baseball cards.

“‘Goldy’ is good,� Marmol said. “And he’s determined and cares. And it’s a matter of time. We have to answer the question that’s obvious, (that) the offense hasn’t produced to the degree that we thought. … But, like, ‘Goldy’ is going to be good. (Nolan) Gorman is going to be good. Nootbaar is going to be good. You can go down that list. And they just will. And the only thing you can do until they are is — be patient. It’s just reality of this.�

That’s the thing. The fans are past patience. Online especially, fans are inside some swirling tornado of impatience and haste. But that’s life as a modern Cardinals fan.

As for the lack of home runs, Marmol said: “Guys aren’t feeling good about their swing, why would you expect them to be driving the baseball everywhere, right? Will they? Yeah, they will. It just hasn’t happened up to this point. And I think I’ve said it enough over the last couple of years — slug is a great thing. Doubles and homers play. We’ll get them. We haven’t up to this point. And there’s no excuse for it because we haven’t, we need to.�

One bit of optimism popped in Saturday’s game. Nolan Arenado had one barreled ball all year (via StatCast), compared to the 34 total he had last season. But he rocketed a 412-foot homer at Busch Stadium against the White Sox (103.4 mph), a ball with an expected batting average of .800. Arenado also hit a ball the opposite way for the second-straight day for a hit — this is a sign that a batter is swinging well. And he tallied two walks, too. He’s put together some good overall stats the past couple weeks, after a weak start.

If only Goldschmidt and Nootbaar could get going … and Gorman and Brendan Donovan … and Jordan Walker returns to form and returns to the Cardinals.

But for now, all we can do is be … um … you know.